Rochesterfan

If players are missing games at that level - then the season should be shut down. I also do not see where the money is coming from to pay these extra players without some major concessions from the current players. If they keep close to 75 players - that is like an additional 700 players across the league. Even at a minimum salary of $500,000 - that is like 350 million for players salaries in a year they expect to see an ~30% decrease in revenue with few to no fans. That does not include the extra travel cost, food cost, stipends, and risk of virus spread with a higher density of players needing to use the same size facilities. I could see a small boost in practice squad players and maybe a shift in practice squad rules with teams not being able to steal practice squad players and more call ups. You could also see an adjustment in the IR allowing sick players two or three weeks of IR and a free call up or something, but I do not see a big expansion of the active roster. The cost would be prohibitive without that being counteracted someplace else in the CBA.

What? This makes no sense at all and runs completely counter to RT-PCR testing in general. Yes - they make a ton of copies, but it is highly specific to RNA sequences specific to Covid 19. It does not identify positive tests for other Covid strains - that would be a useless test. The current PCR assays look specifically for typical 3-5 specific Covid 19 RNA sequences and is highly sensitive. The Positive specificity for these Assays is typically around 99+% and a positive almost always means you have the virus. It does not mean you are infective or can spread, but it does mean you have COVID-19. The false negative specificity is a bigger issue - telling people that are Actually positive that they are negative. This is an unfortunate side effect of the collection of the specimen. Nasal pharyngeal swabs are not the most comfortable collection and especially for people getting these done quickly at tents or more questionable sites - a poor collection creates a negative result. Many places are doing just a routine nasal swab - which has been shown to be effective in symptomatic people, but increases the false negative rate in asymptotic people - leading to missing more cases. The other big issue is believing things like the Abbott ID now assay touted by the White House is a good assay. The sensitivity of that instrument is significantly worse that other longer PCR assays. We finally got the instrument into the lab and it was striking how bad of an assay it is. If you are very symptomatic shedding lots of virus - it is fine, but if you are early in the cycle and are infective, but with few or minor symptoms- it produced many more negatives than the more sensitive assays. RT-PCR is a fabulous testing method for viruses and other infective agents because it is so specific and sensitive and ideally you want to be right when you are telling people they are positive. The biggest issue is almost always specimen collection because a the instrument has no way to know that you missed the virus in the cells you collected. It can only tell you got some cells. Additionally if you actually believe that PCR assays were never intended for testing - then you really need to move out of the 1800’s and get into a modern lab. A modern molecular lab has 100’s of different PCR assays available to help identify Things like flu strains, Tons of different respiratory virus, infectious diseases, and even bacterial infections of the blood in half the time of old methods and with much more specificity than older methods. To pair these types of tests with the rings that are designed to provide things like O2 levels, heart rate, and temperature should help the NBA catch some players before things spread. The issue becomes how much data can the team doctors see because it collects much more info and some of that like location and sleep patterns and even potential intercourse frequency based on heart rate, blood pressure, etc - can all be considered an invasion of privacy- especially if they are supposed of to be bubbled.

Of course they will have significantly less deaths - because they have the benefit of everything learned in Europe and NY for treatment, for handling of these patients, the advanced knowledge to have already expanded their ICU’s and months of the hospitals putting in plans and purchasing equipment to expand ICU space. They also have more testing to help identify and catch the outbreaks and are coming from a place of already having worked to flatten the curve - so they are not fully open. The fact that NY had none of those advantages - treatment was limited to how they handle other respiratory illness - without the knowledge of the cytokines storm and various drugs and testing to better treat and identify those patients. NYS had to deal with this virus when without information the death rate was sitting at about 5 - 10%. Through the efforts of hospital workers in NYS and Italy and open communication on what was working and what was not - they have gotten the death rate to drop to well under 1%. The fact is because we had no federal leadership to address testing, PPE, hospital care, contact tracing, testing supplies, etc. - things that routinely are provided by every other president and the CDC during these types of outbreaks - everyone was starting from scratch. NYS has a governor that listened to the medical professionals and implemented changes based strictly on the data. His leadership helped bring it under control and he helped other states around NY to do the same. It was not perfect and even he admits that if they had known then what they know now - outcomes would have been significantly different. There was an expectation that the federal team/CDC had a better understanding of this illness and that they had supplies to help get through the initial wave, but none of that happened. The fact that in many states the numbers are rising is not a red/blue issue - it is individual people not understanding the spread and impact of the disease. It is a lack of leadership of government officials to understand the data and see trends, but it also takes individuals to be smart and right now we are not. I hear all the time from business owners and religious groups - it is our right to get together - and then you see a packed church or a packed bar and you realize maybe it is your right, but if you can not be responsible- then maybe someone else has to. My guess is that without a viable vaccine - this will continue to increase in every state - including NY as things open and people travel. Testing alone will not stop the spread because it is to late. People need to look at their behaviors to stop it. For sports in general - that means keeping fans away until this is under control and we have prevention not just treatments. How long? That will be determined, but right now it seems we need more rules to prevent stupid behavior because you can’t trust that individuals do what is right.

I find this fascinating because I spend way to much time with our Chief Medical Officer on these several times a week national calls discussing exactly that with various state health department leaders and other chief medical officer and techniques to free up space and increase better outcomes on things learned and seen. Typically due to costs - you want your ICU to be at a fuller capacity, but many of these Texas cities by cutting elective surgery and adjusting bed and floor designation have increased their ICU capacity by 1/4 to 1/3 and they are nearing new capacity. They were sounding alarms 2 weeks ago trying to get the governor to implement these changes and more before the hospitalization started to rise dramatically. Much like as a nation we missed our window to contain by about 1 month with a lack of testing and restrictions- Texas, Florida, and Arizona are acting about 2 weeks to late. It will help, but the restrictions now will not see major impacts for 2 weeks or more. The problem tends to be that these patients need/must spend a longer time in an ICU area when they are that sick - than typical patients - so you begin to see an increase in numbers and you turn them around slower. Hopefully with the lessons learned - they can see better outcomes like other places saw as we learned more. What worries me is reports that hospitals are being asked to no longer discuss ICU availability by various state leaders - we will see how that goes for ensuring information is correctly shared. The impact on football remains to be seen - football still has time - the biggest thing is time to help as long as they have a plan.

You are correct the goal was spread out the virus and prevent the overwhelming of hospitals and allow people to get the correct PPE. The issue is places like Texas, Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina - even with closing the states - rushed to re-open and yes it helped some business, but hospitals are starting to get very overwhelmed. The death rate is down as there are better treatments and techniques, but length of stay - especially for ICU patients is very long. The hospitalizations and death rates also lag about 2 weeks behind the the infection rate - so as the infection rate rises - in 2 weeks we start to see the increase in severe hospitalizations. For South Carolina - looking at the national statistical data and trends - the hospitals are saying they have room and will hit 100% capacity within the next 2-3 weeks, but they have under 3 days room for ICU patients already. With currently almost 900 people in ICU units and a capacity between 1000 and 1500 depending upon if they want to take away from other beds - they are sitting very close to 90% capacity. The projections based upon the current infection rate is that by next week they will need over 2100 ICU beds to handle these patients - 40% more beds than their maximum rate right now. Georgia is in even worse shape as numbers are still rising and they are already at 100% ICU capacity and numbers are rising. Texas and Florida recognized this very late and they have started to reclose things like bars and stop other things from opening and cut back on Restaurants levels and even gatherings outside. Beaches are being closed - especially with July 4th coming up - that is a sign of exactly how bad it is. This is creating huge issues as things re-hired and now are laying people off. They had to restop elective surgeries because they need more hospital beds to creat an increase in ICU space. The issue is exactly what we are concerned about with the players. Bars were packed with "healthy" asymptomatic people - many in a younger age bracket and we are starting to see them get sick and their extended families get sick. We are also seeing it sweep across college areas before the classes even start. The Clemson kids were talking about "college bars" off campus being packed as people had not gone out and now many are getting sick. The issue is that they are not alone because they do not feel sick - they go shopping, to restaurants, work-outs/gyms and they pass it to others that may not be near as young or healthy. Therefore we are still seeing huge rises in hospitalizations and ICU visits. If things do not start to get under control - they are going to need to put more and more restrictions in these places and to bring this back to Football - With higher infection levels - more and more players and their family (and their extended families (elderly parents etc.) are going to get infected). The NBA is going to try a bubble approach, but they have had a number of players refuse to play because they do not want to be away from their family. MLB is trying to control with testing, but there are a lot of holes - especially with team travel and the players being able to be with their family at home. They are expecting a continuation of positives and having to isolate and self quarantine to protect teams. You can do that in MLB where for the most part 1-2 players matter very little. The NFL is going to struggle because they can not create a tight bubble and if players in Miami (for example) live at home with their family - every time their wife/kids or cleaning lady/cook/etc. is out there is a higher risk that they get exposed and their is an increased risk they come in pre-symptomatic and spread it.

Or family members that pass it to others. Or people at the shopping center, restaurant, bar - that spread it out. Or people at the resort games are played at with family. Will they die - statistically it is not likely - are they likely to pass it to someone that could die - yep. It is not surprising that they are positive or that the positivity rate is over 5% - the question becomes how do they mitigate and prevent more exposures - especially as housekeeping staff and cooks, servers, bartenders in and around Orlando are coming up positive at a much higher rate. How long before that one player - infects 10 others and that maid cleaning his room takes it home (or brings it in) and someone vulnerable dies. Where is the death cutoff that is acceptable and where is the acceptable rate of 20-40 year olds going to ICU because of the decisions made by people with poor leadership.

Totally disagree. If most people had it the reproduction rate would be lower and positive cases would be falling - not happening yet. Either that or people are able to get reinfected - which would be worse news for a vaccine. Either way - I think you first statement is just wrong. If it was really blowing up because of more testing - the positivity rate and the hospitalization would not be going up. Oops. If it was just because of testing - the governor of Texas would not be issuing guidance for residents to stay home and talking of closing bars and restaurants and revoking licenses because of overcrowding. He knows it is not more testing that is the problem. % of ICU beds available would not be dropping dramatically to levels not seen in many of these states - if it was just more testing. The death rates are dropping as better and more treatment options are available for those that are severely ill, but the fact that the number of severely ill continues to rise is a very bad sign.

I am not sure how they do that. The national calls our medical leaders are on with other health care leaders around the country (and world) is not really showing a weakening as hospitalizations are increasing significantly in many areas and ICU capacity is less than 20% in many of these areas - a huge concern and a stark realization that it is not weaker and the heat of Florida, Texas, and Arizona is not stopping the spread. The biggest differences in deaths will be the advancements made in treatment to people in ICU’s rather than the virus being weaker. They are also having issues with “symptoms” because the presentation in younger, healthier population is different than in older populations. Doctors are now recognizing that what you look for in a 50-70 year old patient as symptoms- fever, shortness of breath, cough, breathing difficulties, etc. - is missed in the younger population because of greater lung capacity. They find that many of these kids have slightly impaired lung function and minor inflammation (as seen with certain lab tests), but not enough that the person really notices - so are they asymptomatic or are they symptomatic with minor issues. They are also trying to look at their ability to spread because many times they do not notice the signs as they are minor and are now coming up positive as part of their training and getting back to schools, but the contact tracing on these kids is critical because they tend to be more open and free and therefore more likely to be exposed to higher numbers of people than the more elderly population. It is a huge and important part and it will be very interesting to see as the governor of Texas is finally admitting it is an issue again and is telling people to stay home - with a warning that if things don’t change - they may have to shut down again. They are also threatening bar and restaurant owners with losing their licenses over crowds - something almost unheard of for a Texas governor. I think if it is bad enough that they are talking about next steps backwards - I think that answers some of the weakening. So I hope the NFL has a big overall plan as Florida, Texas, Arizona, and California account for 10 NFL teams in states with rising cases that can have a major impact on the overall season. We will see and I have faith the NFL is making many plans even if we almost never here of anything except - we plan on playing a full season.

This would be great if true, but even with the expanded ICU units - Texas hospitalizations are way up and % of ICU space is way down. Same with Florida, Arizona, Carolinas. The idea was to flatten the curve and then maintain some semblance of control to prevent exactly what is happening in many of these states. There is still difficulty getting proper PPE and testing supplies because US leadership decided not to centralize, but force states to compete. If they had actually shutdown and enforced social distancing in many of these places - we would see results closer to what Germany and South Korea are seeing - more isolated breakouts, but we do not enforce simple things like mask wearing and basic social distancing and therefore many states are worse off now that 2 months ago.

Not sure how it will work, MLB and NBA both bargained with the unions to allow the accrual for the season - especially as MLB (before they couldn’t agree on a number of games) was looking at losing over 50% of the season. My guess is the NFL and NFLPA will have to talk since both sides potentially lose a ton of money.

I think you meant Crown Royal is the best and goes with some cola’s. LOL!

Working as a lab person running emergency testing in ICUs - I have seen way to many to count. It has ranged from several “healthy” people in their 30s and 40s to way to many people in their 60-90s. Very frustrating and scary - I have seen some of the strongest and bravest nurses just broken down as there was so little they could do. I also support a couple of local nursing homes and have watched it just ravage that population - people I have seen for years just wiped out as this virus has gone through entire floors. On a personal level - luckily my family and extended family has been safe, but two sister in laws have spent extended time in the hospital after getting it, but both made it out alive. I feel blessed they got it later because both got treatments like forcing time on their stomachs and holding off on ventilators even though their O2 levels were getting critically low - that were not widely known at the beginning and has saved lives.

If we need to expand rosters because of positive testing and quarantine- then they need to postpone or stop the season. They already stand to lose between 3-4 billion in revenue (both owners and NFLPA hit these numbers) based on potential loss of fans - now you want to expand the rosters even further. I just don’t see it. They already expanded with the practice squad - maybe they can use that pool, but the NFL and NFLPA still need to work on an agreement to mitigate the huge drop in salary cap for next year.

Except radio is not what she was hired for. She was hired to do cute little fluff pieces on multimedia for the Bills and Sabres. Being put on the radio - even on the current temporary basis - was a result a contract dispute between PSE and Murphy. She and Chris Brown are both forced to temporarily fill in to cover the openings until PSE decides what it wants to do long term with that role. I personally do not mind her voice - I like her emotions that she brings and a totally different perspective. I can totally understand why some people do not like her voice and do not want to listen. The difficult thing for me is that it is obvious that particular role is a bit over her head at the present time, but she is just doing what she can to fill in. Now I would be less likely to cut her any slack if that was a role she had applied for and was hired into, but I relate to her having to step up and go well above her pay grade due to circumstances. We will see down the road how PSE decides to fill this slot long term.

So then I guess we still need to understand the full context of the text messages to really understand the “stupid” comment he made. What had the 2 of them been talking about - prior to the comment. Had they been discussing in college courses any of this history of GA that you are talking about? Or in previous conversations over time - not just that one? In that case is he making a stupid joke referring to the states history because that was part of their previous discussion- hence the dumb haha. Or is this a legitimate thought and feeling of Mr. Fromm? My biggest issue with this entire thread is people on both sides making wild judgements based on the very limited nature of the tweets. We do not know what was said in the apology or if any context was provided. Right now I am going to allow the team to handle this and allow it to run it’s course. He made a comment that matched with the states previous history about out pricing minorities, but then included himself in that minority group of people that could not afford it. Without full disclosure- the context of the tweets and any judgement by either side is just plain wrong.

Can we do the same thing with certain posters? Mentally remove them from the site?

What are you exactly arguing here? It is a brand new rule - no one outside those with the full rules provided is quite sure how it will work, but the assumption is that just like every player put on the PS initially- they would have to be cut/clear waivers. Essentially they become free and then are signed back to the PS. I would assume just like other PS players they would have the choice, but I am not sure exactly what you are looking for - in your examples of Gore/Brady do you think that they are going to be put on the PS and then stay with their teams? It is essentially designed for a veteran QB spot to allow a team to have some additional support. I think it fits a guy like Barkley that might have fewer options, but you want him around in case of injury. What I am not sure of is how the Bills look at the position and do they want to risk not having a veteran QB for in-game injuries. We will see how it goes as this will be the first time they are using this rule. The same applies to allowing PS players to be eligible for 2 regular season games for injury- how does the moving up and back work in regards to waivers?

That is my understanding - they still have to clear waivers, but you have multiple spots (2) I believe with the new PS agreement that are for any players you want. It will be interesting to see how they are used by teams.

With the new rules if you put MB on the PS - he can only be elevated 2 times and returned to the PS. It is not unlimited. That would mean for most game days you are depending on Fromm to be the back-up if Josh gets hurt in game. Are you willing to risk losing games because you have a rookie back-up QB? You may need to think about 3 QBs on the active roster if you do not want Fromm exposed to waivers. It also does not have to be MB - if Davis Webb can be a capable back-up and give you some type of play at another position you could keep him and Fromm with MB to the PS. I just don’t see any way you can make Fromm the sole #2 at this point with everything on the line. Additionally MJS with the new rules - there are spots on the practice squad that can be used independently of eligibility. So theoretically yes -MB can be placed on the PS as of the new CBA.

Exactly - my guess is it also gets a bit of competitive juices flowing - guys want to be in better shape, guys want to know routes, and most importantly they all see the level of some of these newer guys and realize they have to step up their game. This could be great for a guy like Foster or McKenzie to see just how much competition the WRs will have.

Exactly. We know that each player at the end of the year gets lists of things to work on (plays, gameplans, food/nutrition, workout, etc.) and my guess that includes a ton of plays they want “memorized” for TC and OTAs. They also get a bunch of food and nutrition guidelines individualized for each player. None of that is against the CBA. I do not believe for a second though that SM would provide them with any specific directions for working out together or handling these types of interactions. This is something the players (guys that have been through this) put together. They go through some verbiage to get guys on the same page and hit a bunch of routes on the route tree. There did not appear to be anything specific or hardcore they were doing. My guess would be afterwards that sit around with some drinks and watch a bit of the video shots and talk a bit about what they need to do, but my guess is none of the planning is directed out of Bills headquarters. Now I also would not be surprised if a copy of that ends up back at One Bills Drive for SM an the offensive staff to review so they have some idea of how these guys are operating. They probably will also talk to the guys as the OTAs start and give a few new pointers and ideas based on what you can see.

I don’t think so in any direct way. I am sure SM gave them all specific things to work on and most likely a bunch of plays that they need, but my guess is Webb in working with Josh and Matt is running the workout based upon the plays and plans given and then their own take to have fun. I think they are running it how they want, but using the specifics given to them in the off-season planning.

Yep - just like 80% of people - then they become asymptotic carriers spreading the disease all over - especially if they travel on airplanes or hit up a restaurant in Florida. Do you think it is sick people that are spreading the disease? If it was sick people it would be easy to stop the spread of all diseases. It is the people that feel fine and are not even aware they are sick that spread the majority. They are in Florida - so what they are doing is fine - I am happy to see them together and practicing- I also want them to be safe and not part of the statistics.

Not sure I agree with this at all, but even if they end up being Road Graders - Bell is not that type of back. He is a patient, slide, and quick acceleration through a gap Style of RB - which typically doesn’t work well with big guys getting straight push. Plus you have a head coach in Gase that is more interested in passing than running - so the question really is how good are they at pass protection. Gase does not utilize RBs to their strength- see Miami previously and last year with the Jets - so this is lower on my “concern” meter.

Yeah - sort of seeing that now. Adjusting the heading to make more clear.