HappyDays

Looking like none of the starters will be playing. Good opportunity to evaluate rookies and young players.

No chance we could make this trade work, it's just good to see a conference rival flailing. Cincy will have to average 40 PPG to make the playoffs.

This is McDermott's defense. I won't accept Babich as a scapegoat if the defense disappoints again. Especially since McDermott personally chose him as an internal hire that he was already comfortable with. He's had almost a decade to get this defense right when it matters and it just has to come through this year.

Cam Ward slinging it:

That's what I figured. They want to bring the hammer down, make an example out of him. In the video he says the NFL wanted 10+ games... If the hearing still happens on September 30 and he loses his appeal, he could conceivably be suspended for the rest of the regular season.

https://x.com/LLysowski/status/1956390662925853098?s=19

I get the conspiracy theories about Chiefs favoritism but that's really not what's happening here. The media has done a poor job of explaining the facts. Or worse, deliberately misconstruing the facts to get clicks. The NFL's personal conduct policy is a lot more nebulous than other polices that allow suspensions. The substance abuse policy for example is clearly written into the CBA and there is not much players can do to appeal those. In Rice's case however there is no set policy for what he did. So in his case his appeal must be heard by a neutral arbitrator and Sue Robinson is the federal judge the NFL has appointed to that job. Like any federal judge her schedule is booked out for months, so the first date she has available on her calendar is September 30. Under the rules of the current CBA there is simply nothing the NFL can do to expedite the process unless they agree to a settlement with Rice. The fact that the NFL is NOT reaching a settlement with Rice's side indicates to me they are actually trying to bring the hammer down and set an example. If it was just a 4 game suspension they were offering I believe he would have already accepted it. Dragging the suspension into the middle of the season may in fact be the worse outcome for Rice and the Chiefs. It likely will even help us since he will probably miss our game.

Bond is probably too stupid to make it in the NFL to be honest. Vowed he would break the 40 record and instead barely got below 4.4. Made a statement he was signing with the Browns, turns out it's still up in the air. Would I still take a look at him? Honestly yeah I would given the state of the WR room. He basically just takes over Curtis Samuel's spot on the roster and there's zero risk if he doesn't work out. I doubt the organization will do it though considering Hairston's situation from earlier this year.

Nevermind, he immediately signed with the Browns: I'm just glad it wasn't KC.

I mean you have to at least... No, no, that would be crazy... Then again...

This is speculation on my part but if the NFL and Rice been unable to reach an agreement and the next step is Sue Robinson arbitrating the case, that indicates to me that the NFL is seeking a particularly long suspension and Rice of course doesn't want to accept it.

That's fine. He scored an unbelievable 4th down TD that kept us in the game to begin with. Our offense was struggling early until we started feeding him the ball. He was a key factor in a game where we scored more points than any other team scored against the Chiefs last year. I'm supposed to ignore all of that because of how the game ended? Am I supposed to pretend that with Ray Davis as the starter our offense would have looked the same? I wish the Bills would invest more in pass catchers that can make that winning play on the final drive, but in lieu of that we still need at least one legit playmaker that can sustain drives and score TDs. Right now that's Cook. He is the only skill player we have that I know can jump start our offense when we need it.

On one hand it's extremely annoying that the NFL is dragging its feet which means he gets to play in KC's tough opening stretch. On the other hand we play them in week 9... Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll be suspended for our matchup.

I think this narrative is just so overblown. Despite being on the field 45% of the snaps he still nearly doubled Ray Davis' rush attempts and quintupled Ty Johnson's. He had almost as many receptions as Davis and Johnson combined. People act like he was just a cog in a rotation. When in fact he was by far our most consistently explosive skill player and made a big difference when he was on the field. Personally I'm glad they're limiting his snaps. Keep his mileage low so he can continue making game changing plays for the next four seasons.

I'll tell you what hasn't changed, a select few fans can't even conceive of a player improving after year one. As if it's never happened in the history of the NFL. I saw some mind boggling takes on here that Elijah Moore, a former draft bust playing for his 3rd team in 5 years, was definitively a better WR than Coleman... Not that I'm surprised. Some people just can't let their draft takes go. There were fans declaring Josh Allen a bust after year one and some still saying it after year two. Coleman has a lot to prove but anyone writing him off after last year is just being ridiculous, especially after the training camp he just had.

Every player on every team is dependent on their teammates. The WRs are dependent on their QB and their fellow skill players. The OL is dependent on their RB to find and maximize the hole. The DL is dependent on their fellow DLs to plug the right gaps and apply complementary pressure. Etc. What I know about Cook is that his skill set in this offensive system with this group of players works really well. That's what matters. I agree he is just a part of a machine, and he is not such a great player that he would fit every machine in the NFL perfectly - such players are rare and are at the top of their position. Cook however is not getting paid like he is that caliber of player. He's getting paid for what he is, which is a really good part of a greater whole. We have seen other RBs in the Josh Allen offense and it's never looked as consistently good as it did with Cook last year. My take is you don't mess with that. We're in the championship window now and shouldn't disrupt the one part of our offense that worked extremely well last year because we wish the cap number was $2 million less. The only question that matters is does our chance of beating KC in the playoffs improve with Cook on the field? The answer to that question is obvious - we don't even have a chance at the end this past AFCCG without his contributions. I'm in favor of paying players that help us get us past KC in the playoffs. Moving forward Beane will have to sacrifice the likes of Austin Johnson and Larry Ogunjobi. I'll get over it.

It had a normal caliber and quantity of top level talent, but the consensus was that the talent bottomed out pretty quickly and had poorer than usual depth. Beane knew this which is why he traded a 2024 5th for a 2025 4th and why he kept trading down on day 3. That was not a class for teams drafting outside of the top 10 to find multiple franchise cornerstones. It was a year where you hoped to come away with a couple good starters.

My post was more about the whole draft class for the entire NFL. It had a reputation as a poor class and seemingly has lived up to that.

2023 kind of lived up to its reputation as a poor draft class, yeah? You wish we would have traded up for Addison or drafted LaPorta over Kincaid, other than that there isn't anything that sticks out with our 1st pick. Looking through the 2nd and 3rd round not a lot of game changers in there. All things considered Torrence was a pretty solid pick as a good starting RG considering the other players drafted in his range. Day 3 was almost a complete bust for the entire NFL, at least based on early returns. Still too early to fully evaluate the class but looks like most teams came away with maybe 1 franchise player, 2 at the very most.