Mango

I agree to a certain extent in that it is not wrong, but I don't think this is a social media issue. It is important to note that because this is novel and rapidly spreading across the globe, the need for current information in order for communities to try and get ahead of things are/were important, rather than wait and continue spread. Sure we would like to wait for all the answers before we do anything, but it is clear that the way we interact needed to change rapidly, and without a steady flow of pieces of information, there would have been no way to know how to do that. There are going to be missteps because of how new this is for us, but the more information to save lives, the better.

Ugh. I don't know why I bother, this almost feels like a fake account and should be banned, but I think fact checking and not spreading false information is important. Released by WHO Jan 12, 2020. Yes, they reported they had not seen any evidence of human to human transmission in the first two weeks of the outbreak. But they also clearly said they need more information, and were adopting self-protection measures. At no point did WHO say this was conclusive. "The evidence is highly suggestive that the outbreak is associated with exposures in one seafood market in Wuhan. The market was closed on 1 January 2020. At this stage, there is no infection among healthcare workers, and no clear evidence of human to human transmission. The Chinese authorities continue their work of intensive surveillance and follow up measures, as well as further epidemiological investigations." "Public risk communication activities have been carried out to improve public awareness and adoption of self-protection measures" "to date, investigations are still under way to assess the full extent of the outbreak. Wuhan city is a major domestic and international transport hub. To date, there have been no reported cases outside of Wuhan City. More comprehensive information and ongoing investigations are also required to better understand the epidemiology, clinical picture, source, modes of transmission, and extent of infection; as well as the countermeasures implemented." https://www.who.int/csr/don/12-january-2020-novel-coronavirus-china/en/

Obviously in the pandemic, death is the greatest risk, but in regards to limiting the scope to performance and careers. I think the biggest risk is that too many players become relatively useless even after their two weeks of quarantine. Getting the virus and sitting in a cube all day doesn't effect a ton of your respiratory need (other than survival). But imagine that your respiratory system is what puts food on the table for your family. These guys are operating at razor thin margins. The difference between getting on the podium at the olympics and not racing in the final at all (thinking swimming, rowing, running, etc.) can be a fraction of a percentage in performance. So a player gets sick, they come back at 90%, that is the difference between being a HOF and not being signed as an UDFA out of college. 90% is generous as well. Based on conversations with friends at the Olympic training center, those effected are seeing 20-25% depletion in performance for months on end.

I don't have ESPN + so I don't know if they named each of the 50 people who voted, if you have it could you share the list? I do think you took some liberties here. By the same logic it could go the other way. They could have all been pro personnel scouts, GM's, CB's, and DE's. Scouts- Sure they are experts at college football, in that their job is to find talent at the college level that will translate to the NFL. Weird pigeon hole here. Still no votes. Players- Maybe I am making too many exceptions here, but a guy who is on an NFL roster has probably watched tons of NFL film on both sides of the ball. Probably as reputable a source as just about anybody. Still no votes NFL execs- I would hope they left out the VP of communications. But sure I guess it is possible. NFL execs also include director of player personel, GM's, Assistant GM's, etc. So sure maybe ESPN reached out to the guy who executes sponsorship, advertising, and social media. Maybe they are all execs from non-football ops and that is why Allen didn't get any votes. Coaches- You conveniently left this part out. But, based on your commentary on possibility for NFL execs, they were all probably special assistant to the long snapper. Both offensive and defensive coaches should be pretty in tune with QB play in the league. They are either watching film to get ideas, or they are watching film to stop them. Still no votes.

Honestly, I don't see a ton wrong with this list. Maybe Ben is a bit too high, running on legacy points. Maybe Josh could be in the Carr, Tannehill, Goff group. But other than that, it reads pretty close to me. What do I know though, I am just a dude with an opinion on the internet.

Nice to see this thread get kick started again. I started it months ago. With so much going on I would have to refresh.

Yeah. It’s on Amazon Prime. They have a bunch of seasons both NCAA and NFL. Think hard knocks but they follow the team during the actual season instead of training camp. The Arizona season with Ariana and Palmer is awesome. The Rams season was good. Jeff Fisher gets fired and they’re changing cities. Dallas was not that entertaining, too much Jerry Jones. Carolina wasn’t bad either. Highly recommend. I like it WAAAY more than Hard Knocks.

I don't either. I was more referring to playbook editing, game plans, how to manage the day. It is not real information, but he was weirdly leading every meeting on "all or nothing" on Amazon. Weekly staff meetings, coaches game planning, editing practices. Garrett was just sort of his gimp, sort of felt bad for the guy.

Hoping the NFL doesn't treat this like PED testing. Where clearly everybody is doing it, but a couple of guys get get singled out. MLB and the NHL are over 30 players. The NBA is getting close to that number. Both Outside of Von, Sean Peyton, and Zeke, I don't know of any or many others. The internet isn't showing much in regards to prevalence. All we are getting from the NFL is "Should players be affraid", "List of NFL Protocols" and "Can you play in the Superbowl if you test positive?" Given that roster size in the NFL is 2x or 3x those leagues, you would expect a number of 70+. That most likely won't happen. Part of the reason I shared the story from my friend earlier in this thread. Long and short, she is already an Olympic Gold Medalist, 4 x World Champion, and World Record holder. She got sick in late February/Early March. As of yesterday she is still struggling to get back to February fitness.

I shared it from a friend, so it wasn’t some random copy and paste internet troll story. The argument wasn’t that they should “be afraid”. The last part of her post is “please wear a mask”. There’s about 30 women at the training center. I know of at least 5 who got it around the same time. None of them have bounced back like yet. And none have stories of getting sick and moving on. Again, nobody is studying the effects on elite respiratory systems. Young healthy people shouldn’t be afraid they should die, but what you might call discomfort or difficulty for a few weeks, has a chance of being career altering for many others. Literally that’s the point of the post as it relates to this thread. Also, wear a ***** mask!

I was working on how to respond, but really the only thing you provided was “aggregate data”. You’ve offered no meat to any opinion. So I am just going to leave it to @Hapless Bills Fan Right? Unsure what the point is. We should start the season? We shouldn’t wear masks? Most of the 1200 people sitting in cubicles at Ingram are just a little more out of breath chasing their kids, so Stefon Diggs shouldn’t be worried?

Jerry’s failure is as owner. He can’t relinquish any control on game day, practice, play call, game prep. He’s done a good job at assembling a roster.

This is a long read. But it is an important look. For those who think this thing is two weeks and your done. Below is the story of a friend, 4 time World Champion and Olympic gold medalist. Less than 6 months from the Tokyo games, in literally the best shape of her life, is now pushing to just get back on pace to where she was back in February/March. For those of you not keeping track, it’s July now. This isn’t two weeks of the flu, and get back on the horse. NFL/NCAA players are going to get this, and it will cost them money, careers, and seasons. My COVID experience: This is going to be a long post, but I've seen so many people talking about how the age of people infected with COVID has trended downward and that means we're fine. So I thought it was a good time to share my experience with the virus so that people connected to me could read a 1st hand account of the impact of a mild/moderate case of COVID on a young, healthy, fit individual. In case you don't know me, I am an elite athlete, a 4 time world champion in rowing and I won a gold medal at the 2016 Olympic games. I'm currently training for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics in 2021 now. Back in March everything was changing so rapidly. The virus started spreading in the Northeast US where our team was training for the Olympics. It was an incredibly stressful time and we were entering our last 2 month stretch of selection. Everything started getting canceled, my dad found out he was going to need surgery and radiation to remover cancer from his face, and officials were insisting that the Olympics would definitely go on as planned. We were told that the Olympics don't get canceled (turns out they can be postponed though). Our team continued to train following the local guidelines as they rapidly changed throughout March. I was definitely concerned about the virus and what we were hearing was happening in Italy and other countries, however I considered myself and my teammates low risk individuals. I couldn't tell you the last time I was at a bar or another crowded place. Everything I do, especially in the Olympic year is all about recovery and being in the best position I can possibly be in to make the team. So my social circle is really small, almost completely limited to my team and USRowing employees. NJ issued a stay at home order on March 21st. Our entire team took ergs and weight lifting equipment home with us and I started training on my porch. 2 days later we received an email that a USRowing employee that most of our team was in close contact with tested positive for COVID. We were instructed to quarantine for 2 weeks following our last interaction with that employee. I had worked with the employee who at the time was not showing any symptoms 3 days earlier. I started my quarantine and was so thankful that I had done a massive grocery haul a day earlier. One by one my teammates (ages 23-37) started showing symptoms of the virus. I didn't think I was having any symptoms, but I did notice that I was having a hard time breathing when the intensity of my workouts started increasing and that I was starting to sleep close to 12 hours a night, but I didn't have a fever. So, at the time I attributed the difficulty breathing to erging outside in the cold and the extra sleep to the fact that the Olympics had just been postponed and my entire focus for the last four years was no longer close to 100 days away. As most of my teammates started to recover from their acute COVID symptoms, I started noticing a fever on April 1st. That was Day 12 of my quarantine. Our team doctor told us to look out for anything over 99.0 because their practice had seen people testing positive with fevers as low as 99.0. On the night of Day 12 I had a baby fever of 99.2, so I texted our team Dr. to let him know. I genuinely thought it was unlikely that I had COVID because typically people were showing symptoms days 4-5 after exposure. So I thought that the elevated temperature was probably just a fluke. The next morning I woke up, I felt great, and I never had a fever that entire day. Friday April 3rd was a completely different story. I slept over 12 hours that night and when I woke up it was painful to breathe and my entire body ached like I had done something really wrong while I was practicing the day before. That day my fever ranged from about 100.4-101.7. I couldn't walk up a flight of stairs without needing to sit down and take a nap. Not only did I sleep for 12 hours that night, but I also took a 3 hour nap. I was too weak to make myself food that entire day until I forced myself to make pancakes that night because I knew I had to eat something. The next night I slept for 12 hours again. It was still painful to breath and I was still extremely exhausted and unable to do simple household tasks. Thankfully, though, my body aches were gone that day. These were the 2 days where I had the worst symptoms, but just because these symptoms improved after 2 days doesn't mean I was fully recovered from COVID. It took the rest of April for me to be able to train normally again. I took 4 days off from training while I was sick and in hindsight I wish I had given myself the freedom to take more days off if I needed them. When I first started trying to work out again I tried doing a 30 minute jog. My heart rate was really high and I felt like I was running through water. The jog was meant to be light and a small attempt to get my body moving again, but it was so difficult I had to stop after 20 minutes. I am used to doing workouts that range from 80-120 minutes. I don't give up easily and I was just near my peak closing in on final selection for the Olympics. Now I couldn't even jog/walk for 30 minutes. The next day I tried an easy erg. The best way I can describe what I was feeling is when you crash and burn on a workout because you didn't fuel your body properly. My legs felt fine, but I felt physically feint and shaky and not ready to do the workout. I completed the workout by taking one stroke at a time and allowing myself to be as slow as I needed to be. The entire month of April was a big struggle for me to workout. Things improved to where I was able to workout consistently, but I had to go 10-15 splits slower that I normally would on easy workouts to control my heart rate and make it through workouts. And for refrence, 10-15 splits is a ton, that basically meant I was erging at a pace of a slow college student or average high school girl. I still didn't feel like myself and always felt like I was carrying 50 extra pounds when I was working out. Things didn't really improve until I went for a run the morning of May 2nd. All of a sudden I felt light and like I was in my own body again. It felt like a complete 180. While I felt normal in my body again, it has been a long journey to get back into shape. As of today, over 3 months after my symptoms went away, I am working on getting back into the shape I was in in early February and March before all of the setbacks. While it only ? took me a month to feel like I was in my own body again, I have teammates who were dealing with complications from COVID for over 2 months. So if you don't think the virus is that big of a deal because you are young, healthy, or fit, please consider my story. My guess is that my teammates and I are at a minimum healthier and fitter than most of you and it knocked many of us down hard. I have personally never experienced any other illness like this. I have never been knocked off of my feet for an entire month before. Please wear a mask to protect yourself and the people around you. I am hoping to donate blood plasma to help a person in need. We're all in this together and the more we can do small things the sooner our lives can get back to something resembling normal again.

Oh for sure. I mean, I have a house I really like here, but my career had to get to a certain point before I got it. WE would have gotten something in Buffalo a little cheaper if we didn't have to leave for my SO's job. But the median income here is about 30k higher per year than Buffalo, so by that metric it isn't too bad. I don't get how the average person does it. Buffalo is infilling at the moment. Sort of filling in the donut hole. So as my friends have gotten really comfortable in their careers, they have bought houses on Richmond, Dorchester, etc. because it was trendy. Less are going to OP and East Aurora, Clarence. My more middle income friends who were renting in the city but can afford to buy now are pushing into first ring suburbs like Kenmore. It will be interesting to see what happens.

They let Russ Brandon decide on the HC and not their GM. Extended Whaley after hamstringing his HC hire. Fired their choice in HC, Rex Ryan, who was not Whaley's choice. Hired a McDermott Fired their GM, Whaley Hired Beane. A lot of this reads a TON like the decade of Sabres futility, this one just happened to work out. None of it implies any sort of mastery of how to run an org.

Ha! I just moved out of Buffalo and have been in the capital region (Saratoga)for the last year. I agree, I think it’s probably already starting. Lots of foreclosures in Buffalo at the moment.

This is a larger conversation, but you touched on something really critical for the region. Buffalo is seeing a HUUUUGE cost of living increase, but wages keep staying stagnant. The employment demographics (job opportunity not race, gender, etc.) have not budged. We aren't seeing a large influx of highly paid workers, increased wages, or highly skilled workers to justify it. Buffalo has hyped (fooled) itself into an expensive city that keeps lining the same pockets for generations (Macaluso, Sinatra, Savarino, Paladino, Montante, etc.). A few years ago I was looking to change employers. I found an opportunity at PSE that fit my skill set and career path. I have a friend who works for Labatt in the same building as PSE and knows a bunch of those guys who are higher up. So we go and grab a beer to chat and see what the deal is. They wanted to pay me about 40% of what I was making at my job at the time. They were also pretty candid and said there is very little room for movement internally at PSE. You basically get your job and stay in your job. Obviously I didn't look any further with PSE and moved into my current job that was a 20% increase in pay out of the gates and resulted in a few awards, promotions, and raises along the way.

It’s out of touch with reality in general. Like, which employees are taking public transit to work? For the Bills? In OP, or the Sabres? Not to be a dick, but Buffalo is relatively cheap town with absolutely terrible public transit. Nobody is taking the bus to one bills drive who is a full time employee. Hell, if you’re a full time employee for either the Bills or the Sabres you should make enough to not rely on public transit. It’s not expensive here. She just sort of said things that didn’t add up. She mentioned the Sabres a bunch of times actually.

Maybe it’s PTSD, but it feels like BB has wet dreams of signing a guy like Cam off the streets, then having him beat up on his old DC in a division rivalry. Then a stoic post game presser saying something like “All the credit to Coach McDermott. They do a great job and show up prepared. We knew how ready they would be for what Cam could do, And we know what a quality unit he has there in Buffalo. We knew we had to be ready for today. Our guys put in the work today. Of course you’d like some plays back, but we made enough of them today. On to Baltimore” All after CN drops 350, 2PTD, 82 yards on the ground and 1 RTD.

You don’t have to be cheap and lazy to be really bad at your job. You can bust your ass with tons of cash and still fail.

This is a super valid point. But it also needs to be separated from the average Buffalo income of $55k. Vet minimum ranges from $500-900k. 4-5 months away from your family to earn a million bucks is a different conversation. Now if they don’t want to risk their health given the pandemic, I get it. But earning a mil then zero is quite the loss for, well, everybody. My GF and I have joked she’ll send me away for a year for a million bucks.

Not just that, I found it a bit manipulative. I worked for a family like this for a number of years while I started my career, waiting tables and bar tending to help pay the bills. They assume that their employees can’t take care of themselves, then hold it over their head. Specifically speaking to the Feliciano (I think it was him) story about chattering a plane for his pregnant wife. The Pegulas didn’t charter a plane for them. They didn’t donate their plane. They helped make the contact. JF is a millionaire with an agent, who represents other millionaires. Who is part of an agency that represents even more millionaires. It’s like bragging about being a good neighbor for helping the guy next door find somebody to work on his transmission. It’s silly. Literally the entire thing was damage control. For their layoffs and a decade of failure with the Sabres. She said almost nothing.

Some good points here. But a point of contention. I actually don’t see much of a change from Terry “scheming” with Regier without looping in Ted Black. They continue to push a flat management structure, even mentioning it on their zoom call a few weeks ago. They continue to hire people they are comfortable with rather than people who are good at their jobs and elevating them to be better. They quite literally keep doing the same exact thing and producing the same terrible results. I have questioned some of the moves from McBeane. But holy hell, if the Sabres are the basement of what this ownership is capable of, lock up McBeane for whatever the hell they want for the next 30 years.

This might be a great topic for another thread. But I think you’re right. Mario Williams was fine here. George Edwards wasn’t. By the time his luster wore out off after some highly productive years, he wasn’t the highest player in the league anymore. Dareus was one of the best DT in the league. His fall from grace was tragic and I feel for the guy. Hating on him is hindsight criticism at its best. Tre will be fine. They are a very good unit but lack a lot of star power. He plays with a lot of good enough at CB but not a ton for good. If we can keep a very good and cost efficient safety pairing it’s worth the cost. Josh Allen. Boy this one will be contentious unless he turns out to be a stud. If in 2 years Josh signs at 33M average we’ll be fine, assuming the cap starts to increase again. It’s actually probably a steal once you factor in a cap increase or two. But if it starts to push substantially more than that, he’ll have to make up for much lesser talent at OL and WR and this board will get rough. Then of course Gilmore was too much according to Bills fans. He’s currently a stud. Marshawn has a registered gun in his trunk, and searched while parked for no real good reason, he gets run out of town. Bob Woods wasn’t worth his LA contract, he was, and it was reasonable. We could go back decades with this.

This. Depending on up front bonus money, he could invest and get the possibly the same or greater return on compounding interest compared to fajita chasing market value.