SoTier

Carolina is up 24-7 on the Raiders!

So, what else is new? The mix of rich and powerful execs and desperate young people chasing dreams has been always been a recipe for vile sexual exploitation. The entertainment industry, movies and music, has always been riddled with examples of sordid behavior going back to their earliest days which was in the 1920s. For a long time -- probably until at least the 1980s or 1990s -- the media was largely complicit, and society didn't seem particularly dismayed when stories of vile exploitation did surface. It's only relatively recently that we as a society have changed our views about what constitutes rape, sexual abuse and sexual exploitation (and changed laws to reflect those changed views).

Even without Tua, the Fins are better than the Pats. Dominating a legitimate playoff contender on the road on a short week is definitely more impressive than whipping a team likely to pick in the top 3 in the 2025 draft at home.

The Bills started Allen off with Culley as his QB coach. Culley had coached QBs for a single season about a quarter century before. Luckily, after Russ Brandon was fired, Beane allowed McDermott to fire all of the offensive assistants except Daboll and upgrade the offensive coaches, including QB coach Ken Dorsey. Dorsey might not be a particularly good OC but he certainly helped Josh Allen develop his raw talent. Coaching matters.

His trade value may keep going down, but as others have noted, he's played decently when called upon and DBs tend to get hurt relatively frequently, so his value to the team this season goes up as the season progresses. If the Bills make a serious run in the playoffs, they will likely need to use all of their DBs at one point or another.

The Dolphins' neglect of the OL is really puzzling because, concussions aside, Tua has never been a particularly durable and mobile QB. The Fins passing game depends up timing. It seems that protecting Tua from getting hit and not having his rhythm disrupted by pass rushers in his face ought to be a primary consideration. Instead they gave their extra $$ to Odell Beckham who isn't even ready to play yet. Maybe they figure that if they have enough weapons, defenders are going to be too afraid to pressure their QB. Maybe Minshew Mania 2.0 is in the offing. ^^^ What's wrong with that scenario???

... and make the playoffs! 😁 If you don't believe that coaching matters in today's NFL, the Stillers under Mike Tomlin is Exhibit A. Another good example might be New England. They aren't a very talented team but they are a scrappy bunch under new HC Jerod Mayo. They are going to give the Jests a good fight on Thursday night, and actually beating the New Jerseyites isn't unrealistic.

What many fans don't understand is that JA's arm isn't his most important talent. It's his drive to succeed that's enabled him to become one of the two best QBs in the NFL. Anybody who doesn't think that Allen will do whatever he has to do to win football games --including handing the ball off more than he threw it -- hasn't watched him since his rookie season when he didn't know what he was doing but still rallied to his team.

On paper, the Jests OL looks good; they brought in several former Pro Bowl OLers. On the field, however, they were awful against the Niners and only somewhat better against the Titans. More troubling for the Jests going forward is that their new OLers are mostly older vets with significant histories of injuries. It doesn't seem likely that all of those OLers stay healthy throughout the season. I watched much of the Jests game yesterday. The OL played so poorly early on in the game that Hackett changed his play calling to primarily short, quick passes. Although Rodgers was only sacked twice, he was hit several times and I think he was knocked down a couple of times, too.

It's not a matter of size or any other physical attribute. CJ Stroud is good because he's got the intangibles that separate good/great QBs from the rest. Bryce Young simply doesn't "get it" -- he seems to lack the ability to understand what he sees in front of him and translate that understanding into correct action fast enough to be successful in the NFL.

Said some members of every older generation ever. It's not a new thing, but I think that the increasing pace of change in today's world makes the changes between generations more noticeable. People don't like change, and young people doing things differently seriously chaps some old (and some not so old) geezers' butts.

Exactly. At the last preseason games Bills players were wearing winter caps on the sidelines, including Hollins and Cook. I think one of the announcers commented on it.

For most of the early window, the Pats looked like the 2nd best team in the AFCE. They lost to Seattle in OT, so they're tied with the Jests. The Jests are fully capable of losing to any team in the NFL. They struggled mightily against Tennessee. If the Titans had a better QB than Levis, they might be a playoff team; he's the leader of bone-head plays so far this season, although JaMar Chase is just behind. The Jests also had a couple of their players carted off with injuries.

Bo Nix picked in the EZ!

IMO, the Jests talent is overrated. Their OL looks good on paper but in reality they are depending upon a bunch of older vets with significant injury histories. Without a decent OL, Rodgers is likely toast sooner than later. Their much ballyhooed defense was simply awful against the Niners. They couldn't stop the run between the tackles and got butt whooped for their incompetence as evidenced by failing to stop the Niners from scoring on eight drives. I think that the Jests coaching is very suspect, as evidenced by their lack of preparedness against the Niners.

Ah, but that just makes you a homer wearing rose-colored glasses! The sky really IS falling!!! //sarcasm off

I personally think that having Cook on the roster is worth considerably more than a 2nd or 3rd round draft pick. A draft pick is simply a lottery ticket; there's a chance you might be a big winner but it's more likely that you win a much smaller prize or nothing at all. Is that potential win worth more than having the services of a player like Cook for this season and next, especially if he continues to play the way he's started this season? Even if Davis proves to be a stud, he and Cook have different talents/skills, so that's another thing to consider. Keeping both on rookie contracts seems a no-brainer to me. The Bills need play makers NOW not the opportunity to maybe pick up a future one if they are serious about competing for a Lombardi. If Cook develops into a CMC or Kamara type RB, then maybe the Bills should consider whether they offer him a second contract but it's better to let Cook walk at the end of his rookie deal than to give away a year or more of production on the sketchy promise of a Day 2 draft pick.

Agree, but it's not going to happen while Woody Johnson is the owner. He's owned the team for 20+ years, and aside from a couple of years under Rex Ryan, the team has been mediocre to crappy. I doubt that any other team has spent more resources on acquiring a QB with less to show for it. They traded up to #5 in 2009 to take Mark Sanchez and to #3 in 2018 to take Sam Darnold. They used their own #2 pick to take Zach Wilson in 2021. Just before the 2023 draft, the Jests swapped firsts with Green Bay plus 3 other picks, including their 2023 and 2024 second rounders, to acquire Aaron Rodgers, who win or lose, is likely to be gone after this season, leaving the Jests at square one again.

But Mostert is out, so they won't have that dynamic 1-2 punch.

You need some perspective, dude. Your complaints are those of a fan spoiled by the Bills being in the playoffs 5 of the last 6 seasons. Maybe you're too young to remember the "bad old days" or maybe you've forgotten the misery of rooting for a perennial bottom feeder. The current Bills situation beats the crap out of tailgating being the best part of home games and the punter being the team's only Pro Bowler and watching the best Bills players playing in the playoffs for other teams. I'm never going to complain about being on this ride.

It seemed to me that the Jests defense has spent too much time basking in media adulation and not enough time preparing. They got butt whooped ... and the offense was so pedestrian, there's no way it could bail them out. Rodgers certainly didn't look like a super hero. Very early in the game, I think when the Niners were trailing, one of the announcers actually said that Shanahan said that the way to beat the Jets' defense was to run between the tackles. Boy, did they run between the tackles ... all game long.

Point 1: Brady is the offensive coordinator, not a position coach, so the penalties on the OL weren't on him. He designs, selects and calls plays. Point 2: The point of designing a game plan is to take advantage of your opponent's weaknesses and maximize your team's strengths. That means that your opponents dictate a lot of what your team do. It's likely that the Cards concentrated on Kincaid. The Bills ran the ball a lot because Arizona was poor against the run. Point 3: On the last drive the Bills were trying to close out the game, so playing conservatively on offense is what smart teams do to win games.

Drafting Manuel was a classic example of why I hate Russ Brandon. The very best thing that happened to the Buffalo Bills since the Glory Years was the Pegulas' firing Brandon. Brandon ruled the Bills in Ralph Wilson's last years as if he were the owner, and his aim was to make the Bills as profitable as possible so that the team would bring in as much as possible in the inevitable sale after Wilson passed. Whether it was Nix or Whaley, the Bills FO took their marching orders from Brandon, and in 2013 he ordered them to draft a QB because he knew a first round rookie QB would put butts in the seats. That there were no actual first round worthy QBs in that draft was immaterial. It was all about $$$ with Brandon. Say what you want about Beane, but he's trying to build the best team he can, and he's done a pretty good job. I think Geno Smith is one of the very few QBs who can truly be said to be a "late bloomer", ie a high-draft pick QB who failed early on but became a solid starter later in his career. Geno has also sustained his good play over a couple of seasons, and that's really unusual.

The Cornhuskers are taking it to Colorado and Shadeur Sanders. They're up 14-0 in the first quarter, including a pick six. I don't think that the Buffaloes have got a first down yet on three possessions.

Exactly. I think that there was a lot of skepticism about Mahomes because of the type of offense that he played in college. As it was, Mahomes sat behind Alex Smith for the 2017 season until the very last game. Furthermore, Chicago traded up to #3 to take Mitch Trubisky, so Mahomes was hardly a shoo-in. Moreover, the Bills took Tre White with their pick from KC -- AND they bundled the first rounder they got from KC to trade up to get Allen in 2018. But not because of Xavier Worthy