HappyDays

Also worth noting that she filed a police report back when Hairston was just a visiting college freshman, not a 1st round pick, which counters the notion that this has just been a big money grab. There is an increasingly common double standard that is happening with these cases on social media, where some of the same people saying "innocent until proven guilty" are quick to immediately pronounce the girl as a lying money grabber. Filing a false report is in fact also a crime so innocent until proven guilty applies in her case as well.

All civil lawsuits are by definition money grabs. She filed a police report back when the incident allegedly happened and has posted about it on social media over the years. She is now trying to pursue her final chance at some kind of recourse. My speculative take is that the girl genuinely feels like she was wronged, but that doesn't mean she actually was in a legal sense. There is in fact a middle ground on this issue between "Hairston is a rapist" and "the girl is a lying money grabber." But it's a very messy middle ground with no clear answers.

Not only was he not charged, the matter was investigated and dropped due to lack of evidence. The girl has posted on social media about it several times over the years but there has never been any corroborating evidence, so I don't know what she or the law firm are expecting to happen here. I would guess they're hoping for a quick settlement.

Weird move. Waller can't block which is part of what made Jonnu Smith valuable to that offense. I guess we'll see if he has anything left in the tank as a pass catcher.

It is good for the Bills. Last year we had trouble separating outside, and one of our division rivals now has nobody that can cover outside. Bills fans have an unduly negative opinion of Ramsey because of comments he made in the past about Allen. He is no longer in his prime but he is still a very good outside CB. In our matchups last year our WRs couldn't do anything against him.

The Dolphins now have zero starting caliber outside CBs.

For most coaches those blunders are things like "ah we ran on 4th and 1 instead of giving our QB a chance" where the thought process was defensible and the fan reaction was entirely outcome dependent. You're not typically seeing cases where the coaching decision was so bad that it effectively ended the game. In those cases the offending coach is usually quickly fired, like Matt Eberflus after the Thanksgiving game in Detroit last year. Another example to me was in the Ravens playoff game when we had our backup DL on the field for the entire final drive, which gave us no chance of stopping them, but luckily we got saved from that fatal coaching blunder through sheer luck on the 2PC. My fear with McDermott for a while has been that I think you need to win those moments at least once or twice in your playoff run to ultimately win a Super Bowl. I don't know if he just tightens up too much in those high leverage moments or what, but he has consistently failed in those moments in some pretty shocking ways. Some of the other criticisms of McDermott I can find some explanations, like maybe the defensive breakdowns in the playoffs really are just because of talent and/or injuries, but I can't find an explanation for those end of game moments.

Those coaches are gone, yet we made equally terrible coaching decisions at the end of the Rams game this past season. One of my concerns with McDermott is that I haven't seen improvement. Too frequently in high leverage moments we are still seeing boneheaded coaching blunders and that has persisted year over year. Oh well. Just gotta hope he figures it out this year, nothing else I can do.

Okay I nailed the first one. I was wrong on Coleman although I'd like to know how close I'd have gotten if he hadn't gotten injured. He did finish 2nd in yards and TDs which I don't think most fans would have predicted especially with him missing 4 games. I was way off on the last one. Nailed the Rams. I expected San Fran to take a step back and for LA to be better than people thought. I was way way off on the Bears. Every year one of my bold predictions is picking a 4th place to 1st place division team which happens pretty much every year. Of course last year was one of the rare occasions where that didn't happen so I was doomed to fail in any case. Texans and Packers were not as good as I expected. I earn zero points for predicting KC in the AFCCG. Lions I think would have been there if they weren't decimated by injuries.

Rookie - TJ Sanders. He was already getting some positive reviews from beat reporters at OTAs and I think it will only get better once the pads go on. Non-rookie - Elijah Moore. He also got a lot of buzz at OTAs. His skill set will shine in a camp setting and I think ultimately the fanbase's expectations will get high, possibly too high.

Last year's offensive scheme was about making Allen's play more boring, no? I don't mean that in a bad way. Raising the floor was an admirable goal and the results spoke for themselves. I think Justin Herbert's problem is Justin Herbert. He is missing that spark of pure will that defines the top 4 QBs. That mentality in critical moments that he will make it happen all on his own if he has to. I don't think Harbaugh took that spark out of him, he just never had it to begin with. What Harbaugh did last year is make the best out of a horrid group of skill players and a QB that isn't uniquely talented enough to overcome it.

This is a huge year for McDermott. To me it should be looked at as his defining season - either he can get us to the ultimate goal or he can't. Short of our IR wire looking like the Lions last year, there can't be any excuses. Last offseason we took our medicine and took a purposeful step back as a means of opening the second championship window. That window is now wide open. This offseason we have hired new defensive coaches with different philosophical backgrounds. We re-signed 3 of our own defensive cornerstones. We spent most of our free agency money on defensive players. We spent all of our premium draft picks on defensive players. So the message from the team is loud and clear - all of these investments presumably were necessary to help take McDermott's defense to a championship level. If after all of that we suffer yet another playoff loss to KC where the defense barely puts up any resistance, that has to be the final signal that McDermott isn't going to get it done. Ever. We also should be competing for the #1 seed this year. McDermott has to find a way to avoid the team's annual 2-4 game slump which perenially keeps us out of that conversation. It's not gonna get any easier than 10 games combined against a weak AFC East and NFC South. So get the #1 seed. If you don't, okay, the defense still needs to perform against KC in January. If neither of those things happen, then what is the reason for optimism that McDermott ever gets it done? I'm so over the debate on what he's done in the past. Both sides have made their points. My hope is that everyone including McDermott optimists are at least willing to draw a line in the sand on the team's performance this year.

I mean this is just stretching to find reasons not to compliment the player. KC's defense had the play sniffed out and perfectly covered. None of the RBs you mentioned would come close to making that play. There is a phenomenon happening amongst certain Bills fans where they're making the jump from "we shouldn't pay Cook" to "Cook isn't that good." There are plenty of reasonable arguments for why Cook shouldn't be extended - his position, his snap count, his 3rd down %, etc. You can make those arguments without making irrational comparisons to Singletary and the like. Any discussion about extending Cook should acknowledge the fact that if you don't extend him you are losing some of the great individual plays he made last year.

Funny enough I don't think there's any way Hurts is the 5th best QB in the NFL right now. But you're weighing different factors more heavily than I am. I can't find reason to poke holes in anyone's list because there are a lot of different ways to approach the question. The top 4 is the top 4 in whatever order you want, and then from there it gets tricky. The way I look at is pretend each QB was on the Eagles last year. What would their record be? The top 4 might have had that team undefeated. From there I am ranking based on how I see their consistency and skill set.

FWIW I struggled the most with that tier of #5-#10. What made me put Stafford at the top of that tier is I think he is still the most consistent out of that group. I am not looking at stats and I am not factoring in his 2022 Super Bowl win. His arm power is still there and because he's played for so long he can diagnose defenses with the best of them. He had to deal with Kupp losing a step and Nacua being injured for much of the year, middling pass protection, and a below average defense.

People are too quick to blame mental illness for stuff like that. If a guy has schizoprehnic delusions that cause him to burn down a building, okay that is a case where mental illness was responsible. But not too many mentally ill people out there are grabbing a security officer's gun outside of a club and shooting at someone they're having an argument with. That is just run of the mill bad person behavior. Antonio Brown is a bad person. Don't muddy the waters by even bringing his supposed "mental illness" into it.

I assume the question is referring to last year. The 2017 Bills facing last year's schedule would absolutely not have gone 9-7 and made the wildcard. I would say 7-9 at best. The competition in the AFC has gotten a lot tougher since then and we're playing a 1st place schedule.

I think he was also just playing better two seasons ago though. 2022 for my money was the most impressive season of his career, right after trading Tyreek Hill he had to play a new brand of football and immediately delivered an elite performance. Not sure what happened after that season, maybe just fatigue from a lot of deep playoff runs, but he is not playing that well these days. And again I'm not talking about stats, just actual play on the field based on the eye test. So I have to rank based on how these QBs are performing now, not on what they were doing over two years ago. I could see an argument to arrange the top 4 any way you'd like. It depends on what factors you're weighing, how far back you're analyzing, what play style you prefer, etc. I would expect any fan of one of those 4 teams to rank their QB #1 and I would respect it. There are solid counterarguments for all of them too. That's what makes the conversation interesting.

I'm really not looking at stats at all. And I am taking the supporting cast into account, that's why I have the most recent Super Bowl champion at #11 on my list. Mahomes just hasn't played at the highest level over the past two seasons. Allen, Jackson, and Burrow all got MVP hype last year. The QB of the 15-1 team got no MVP hype at all. That tells you where the national perception is at right now. Part of it is people recognizing that their defense and special teams was the primary engine to that record. And those parts of the team definitely gave him some leeway that the other top 3 QBs did not have, even accounting for his middling supporting cast. I hear you on the clutch factor. I just don't think you can weigh it so heavily that you ignore the QB's play for the other 58 minutes of a football game. If you were weighing playoff football heavier then Jackson might be #4 on the list, maybe even out of the top 4 entirely. But I'm just looking at their play on the whole over the entire season.

It doesn't have to count for anything. QBs have a lower impact on single game wins than most fans think. They're probably worth like 30% or less of the team's overall success. Which of course makes them by far the most important player on the team, but the rest of the team taken as a whole is still more impactful. This is the same line of thinking that makes a lot of Eagles fans argue to the death that Hurts is a top 5 QB, but when you watch him play there is a clear drop off.

Actually Mahomes being #4 is not so controversial. Because it's based on how they're playing right now, not their career achievements. Chris Simms ranked Mahomes #4 in his list, Joe Marino did a QB ranking recently and also had Mahomes #4. It's kind of undeniable that the other top 3 are playing at least at his level or higher. For me Allen and Jackson clearly were the two best QBs last year, Burrow and Mahomes I could place in either order. I gave Mahomes the edge because he has that uncanny ability to pull out a close game at the end. But his overall play last year would have lost more games for both the Ravens and Bills IMO.

Chris Simms just did his top 40 QB countdown. This was his top 10: Here's where I'm at, entirely based on their play right now not on their career. I put a line in between what I consider to be a significant drop off from one tier to the next. 1) Allen 2) Jackson 3) Mahomes 4) Burrow ----- 5) Stafford 6) Daniels 7) Stroud 8 ) Herbert 9) Goff 10) Mayfield ----- 11) Hurts 12) Murray 13) Prescott 14) Geno 15) Love 16) Nix 17) Tua 18) Purdy 19) Lawrence 20) Rodgers ----- 21) Maye 22) Darnold 23) Daniel Jones 24) Young 25) Penix 26) Wilson 27) Caleb Williams 28) Fields ----- 29) Ward 30) McCarthy 31) Browns QBs 32) Saints QBs

No the expectations are right where they should be. He was taken in a WR heavy draft which means the talent was pushed down the board, and we had our pick of 7 different WRs before we traded down. So if Beane and the scouting staff did their jobs properly then Coleman should be expected to develop into at least a solid WR2. That means he needs to be a regular contributor and get a minimum of around 800 yards. Now if he doesn't hit that in year two does that mean he's a bust? Of course not. But this year you want to see meaningful progress leading in that direction if nothing else.

Yeah and that mindset is why we once trotted AJ Klein onto the field in the divisional round instead of playing a rookie Dorian Williams. Klein knew the defense better but that doesn't help when your movement skills resemble the Tin Man. There is a part of me that worries the same thing will happen with Tre White and Hairston. Hopefully not though. McDermott said earlier this week the plan is to play a lot of young players on defense and reports from OTAs/minicamp said Hairston was being coached hard and getting better week over week. So I hope that they are expecting him to win the job, and that even if he is still making some mental mistakes McDermott will give him his runway early in the season to acclimate to the NFL and the team will be better for it in January.

The mindset should be if there's a tie or even if it's close you give the job to the rookie because the rookie has the most room for improvement. We shouldn't be afraid of mental mistakes early in the season if the rookie is learning from those moments and ultimately playing better than the vet ever could in December and January.