Richard Noggin

I'll admit to being absolutely irate over those two consecutive drives that went nowhere with shockingly unimaginative, conservative play calling. It was so glaringly infuriating. THAT'S when the Bills truly lost the game. You simply cannot squander back-to-back drives against such a potent offensive opponent. You need to capitalize on EVERY advantage, and convert EVERY point you can possibly squeeze out of a 60-minute contest. Otherwise... On one hand, McD is deserving of intense scrutiny as a game manager and situational tactician. No doubt. On the other, he has built, and continues to build upon, one of the most competitively successful organizations in the NFL. He is an excellent leader. Without question.

Josh's agent to Harper later that day:

To be fair, that is way too many Carrie's for any one man to handle in a single day. Except maybe peak Wilt the Stilt.

Total agreement. However, being able to confidently/competently mix in man and press coverage calls on either side of the formation IS an option they've admittedly sought to add to their repertoire.

Great read. The dive into Dorsey's early work with Cam Newton is especially salient: "Mike Shula, who worked as both QB coach and offensive coordinator for the Panthers and is now a Buffalo assistant, said Dorsey was instrumental in empowering Newton’s voice in the quarterback room. “He was flexible enough to say, ‘Hey, we got a guy here where it’s a little bit of unchartered waters. Let’s see how far we can take this,’” Shula explained. “He pushed the idea of, ‘Hey, let’s listen more to Cam, he’s got a lot of good ideas and it’s not what we’re used to.’ We went back into some of his stuff at Auburn. … The more we listened and the more we put that stuff in, the better we got.”" Also: "Dorsey said Newton “forced me to evaluate and research and do other things to expand your scope of what you can do as an offense.” And Beane and Bills head coach Sean McDermott, who were both in the Panthers organization during the Newton era, saw that innovation daily." Dorsey's promotion feels VERY organic and well-timed. Let's hope it works allows the offense to find more consistency.

Strongly disagree. The team played well during White's absence last year (minus the Chiefs), and while Wallace is now gone, guys like Lewis, McCloud, and Neal (not to mention Elam) are ready to step up. Leslie Frazier and Sean McDermott develop DBs, BELIEVE THAT! Plenty of other, more rational areas for concern.

I wish this kind of engagement and intensity translated into making plays on game day. What an effing GEM he'd be if that was the case. And maybe he's finally ready to just play fast and loose and impact the game. We don't know he isn't still catching up to the game, but we haven't seen the results on the field yet.

Without reading through the thread, let me be the next poster to point out Tom Brady's previous arrangements with the Patriots via his snake oil sports supplement/training business. TB12 was paid below market value for years, according to the salary cap. TB12 was NOT in fact paid below market value for years, in reality.

I'm not sure how much private exposure fans have had to Andre Reed, but from my limited but intimate access, I'm not ready to take his word as anything more than hype / bluster. Not saying he's wrong about OBJ's potential interest in the Bills (Buffalo is a SEXY destination for WRs), but whatever conversation they had was akin to late-night bro-hype over nose beers.

If anyone has an extra ticket to Kids' Day, I'm looking. We have two season tickets, but with me working that day, it will take BOTH my wife and my mother to fill-in and wrangle our 5 year-old daughter at the stadium. I took her last year to that inferno of an afternoon. So we need a third ticket. We're high up in 137 this season, I'm pretty sure. Were 2nd row in 336 last season, so we chose to relocate to the lower bowl just below that.

Those really high end (for working Americans) camp salary rates are typically in addition to much more impactful guaranteed bonuses; even fringy guys often see 5-6 figure signing bonuses and other built-in escalators for sticking around and performing. Remember, even guys who get waived have opportunities elsewhere and on average last for 2-3 years in the league, even if bouncing around. A FRINGE roster guy can easily make a million or more in his first 3 seasons as a practice squad-ish talent. Where's the risk in that? Working hard year round? Join the club. Takes me 10-15 years of INTENSE workload to match 3 years of earnings as an ultra-fringe PS/Street FA guy. And good for the players, don't get me wrong. I love to see wealth transferring to these modern day gladiators. But don't cry for them, either.

Herein lies the rub. With highly-drafted QBs on rookie deals, they either get a top tier AAV extension, or they hit the market (or hit the road via trade). There is no middle class with the team who drafts them. Big money or no money. Does it work the same for a 1st round MLB? Or is there room for a reasonable, mutually beneficial extension? I was pleasantly surprised by Milano's deal, and he has inarguably outperformed Edmunds to date.

While not very imaginative or dynamically different, these unis seem kinda okay to me.

Long line to get in as practice started. They stopped letting people into the primary bleachers area by then, and wouldn't let anyone in for the rest of the day, to many fans' dismay. So the only options were the far side portable bleachers or standing around. Get to practice early if you want to get anywhere near the players. By moving around we got some good views of RBs doing individual drills, and the first 7-on-7 RZ session.

There's social commentary in here about assumptions made based on appearance. I guess on one hand it's a compliment.

I bolded the two predictions that I'd call bold. And saying the Ravens will miss the playoffs really doesn't even feel super bold to me on paper, if we ignore their past record of success under this regime. The other six predictions seem like decent bets depending on the odds. Okay, upon further review, predicting a specific, injured, unsigned WR will catch a TD in the Super Bowl IS bold. Even if that same player did this very thing last season...

This was my first thought. It's bold. Less bold is an '89 Bills kind of season. Maybe not with respect to internal strife, but more so results. Uneven, underachieving. One and done in the playoffs.

Sometimes you eat the bar. Sometimes the bar eats you.

This stat doesn't tell us anything about fandom/allegiance/enthusiasm of those in attendance. At all. The Rams definitely fit LA better than the Chargers, with respect to celebrity status of the orgs (McVay, OBJ, Donald, Ramsey, for starters) and considering this most recent iteration of the NFL in LA was catalyzed by THEIR owner...but these contextless stats don't do much to help us better evaluate the prior poster's point.

Is that you, Solomon (Wilcots)?

Park in your own driveway, is my advice. (But I'm a jerk.)

👀

There was definitely a point last season when Davis and Allen were not on the same page. I kept interpreting that to mean that the myriad option routes in Daboll's offense were being misread by Davis against looks he hadn't had enough prep for (perhaps due to practice reps lost to injury?). That E-P passing game requires the QB and WR to be in lock-step with reading and reacting to defensive looks and leverages.

The Bills practicing the shovel pass was actually briefly shown in a brief local TV news segment leading up to the game, and I swear I knew that play was going to be featured. By 1994 the Bills offense was becoming a predictable facsimile of its earlier self, and any new wrinkles were not exactly destined for success.