Beck Water

Question: how does IR work during the playoffs? I mean there's only 3 games max left so if we IR someone, does that mean he's gone?

I'm glad it was clear to you. The way McDermott worded it "Phillips 21 day return window opens today", created confusion for me and possibly others. He coulda worded it more clearly. But he's got a lot of other stuff on his mind. Question: When did he find it (Nick Wright find his mind I mean)? And while we're at it, How Would We Tell? I'm right there witcha. Before the season, if anyone had told me Bernard would be the Toast of our D I'd have been "wait wat?"

Good post. FWIW, Brett Kern had an average NYP of 36.6 his last year with Philly. That's 10 punts over 4 games in 2022. Andy Lee is freakin' 40 but that was his NYP average his last year with 'Zona. I think I'd rather Pat O'Donnell than either. For one thing, he was still bopping around the league this season after being cut by GB at the end of training camp, so evidently he still wants to play. On the Falcons practice squad in Oct. then on and off their roster in December. For another, while his NYP average is lower at 38 he did it outside in windy cold weather with Chicago and GB. But I'm not opposed to bringing back Haack. He does have that "familiar holder for Bass" thing going for him.

The problem with Haack, if I recall correctly, was not his punting distance. It's that he seems to have this unusually long windup that resulted in some punts being blocked or scarily close to blocked. Then he would squib some. So if he punted 5 times, 4 of them might travel a respectable 40 yds and one of them only 28. It was like Forrest Gump's box of Chocolates, you never knew what you were gonna get

I think your prognosis may be correct, "Dr Spikes". What I'm worried about is how effective Dodson will be, but those worries are largely based upon speculation from Banged Up Bills which as many have pointed out, is just educated guessing based on his knowledge of injuries and what causes them.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEEeG0YWwAAPAvU?format=jpg&name=900x900 That's ..... a bit scary WTF man we're talking about Filthy Beast. Try to keep up. Of course @Logic is not a troll. Wrong, (peppa)pig-headed and mistaken sometimes, but not a troll. Speaking of which has anyone seen @Logic and Peppa Pig in the same room at the same time?

Actually, I think it shows he's a troll, but that could just be my background. He's for sure no Bills fan and that's a hill I'm ready to die on. Edit: just in case someone else isn't keeping up, I'm talking about Filthy Beast and so is Chongli.

Confirming Haack will be a practice squad signing. Another "No Punt Game" would be fine with me.

Having watched McDermott's presser, my personal impression is that Bernard was not diagnosed with a fracture or with ligament tears requiring surgery, but he's not exactly thinking it's likely Bernard will be able to play. More just trying to keep the "competitive advantage" by placing the issue in doubt.

Hauschka was a field goal kicker, never punted in the league as far as I know.

I came here to suggest this. If you already have a Facebook account, look around for a group in your neighborhood. Also try Nextdoor and even "Buy Nothing", as you might have something you could swap for some help (a couple cans of soup, who knows?) We have a Facebook group for our neighborhood and our town and I know people would be all over giving you a hand, it's just a matter of reaching the right folks. Good Luck OP!

I mean, what was reported? We never get specifics of injuries, and that matters. Banged Up Bills had this to say prior to the Pittsburg round: A "strain" in this context means a muscle injury vs. a ligament injury (sprain). But like a sprain, a strain can be graded as mild to severe. Anyway, if it's been reported "Grade 1 strain" (mild) I haven't seen that. All I know is we've been told before that calf strains can linger.

It could be either, given that today's practice was a walk-through

Well, a lot of us have been Bills fans for >40 years. We've lived through losing the very first AFC championship game after the league merger (and coming off two back to back AFL championships). We've lived through a couple of sporadic good years in the 70s and 80s only to fizzle, then the Marv Levy years of "Wide Right" followed by 3 more Superbowl losses. Hope for the best, but fear the worst is baked into us by now, and BBFS (Battered Bills Fan Syndrome) is a Thing. But no, it doesn't happen before every game. Before the Steelers game, many were concerned because of the weather - bad weather that would negate our passing game and equalize the team more than it should be. There was also some injury concern with 3 starters and 1 regular contributor ruled out (Gabe, Rasul Douglas, Tyrell Dodson, Taylor Rapp) Now with this game we're looking at the injuries piling up even more and cussing. It's huge being potentially down both starting LBs, our starting nickel, and both starting CBs going against KC and Mahomes. I think we'd all feel more positive if we were healthier on D.

The players get less compensation for playoffs than you might think. For the division round, each player on the Bills will get $46,500. Vet minimum for a 7 year vet would be $64,700 per game, so it's not even vet minimum. And of course, if he's on the practice squad and not elevated that's a max of $20,600. Spotrac puts Haack's career earnings at $7.3M. He might have what Klein called "the itch" to join a team in the playoffs, but I'm kind of thinking the paycheck per se might not be the strongest motivation to cancel whatever plans he and his family have made and fly into the lake effect snow. PS if you're let go from an employer and you say "no thank you" if they try to hire you back, is it always spite IYO?

"Not that there's anything wrong with that"(tm)

This is where I am. Jebus, that Injury Bug has just killed us. I actually feel fairly confident in McDermott's ability to create a defensive game plan that will make good use of the bodies he has. But so many guys went down, we're not playing backups, we're playing backups backups. McDermott sounded pretty confident that they had a plan to bring guys into the facility for practice, I hope he's right, because when you can't practice, you have to go with the status quo and our status quo would feature plugging backups backups into roles that don't best suit them (not to mention, it's hard to rehab if you can't get to the facility and work with the trainers) I think it's a positive that we signed Haack. Glad he was willing to come in, despite getting cut a couple years back.

Yeah, if you read the follows on that tweet, the guy who compiled it states that's his point - those are all jukes, and Allen does them regularly on his runs. "A Thing of Beauty is a Joy Forever" tm If we replaced Josh Allen with an RB and promoted that as a compilation of fine runs, no one would be talking about fake slides. It would be "man, he looks a little awkward but he sure can juke 'em"

A couple things here. I feel sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but the Bills plan to replace Milano seems to have been to use Dodson on possible run downs (about 65-85% of the snaps) and replace him on obvious passing downs by bringing Poyer into the box as a sort of "dime" back, and backfilling at safety, usually with Rapp. What we don't know, is if even a healthy and two-armed Dodson can play MLB capably for the Bills, let alone with one arm supported by a sling and maybe not able to lift it to tackle. That's been Terrell Bernard, then Klein moved over and played very well for him. In 2020, when the Chiefs beat us at home, Allen's L arm was in a sling and it affected his throwing motion. We were also trying to replace Milano in "next man up" fashion by plugging in AJ Klein. Eventually, Klein played admirably in relief of Milano, but Frazier talked about how Milano-Edmunds-Johnson were interconnected and they had to re-distribute coverage responsibilities with Milano out. It took them a couple of games to work it out. I *think* that McDermott is less conservative and more willing to re-work the defense on a game-by-game basis for injuries than Frazier was, but I do think McDermott sometimes gives injured players too much "benefit of the doubt" in whether they're able to play or not, when they really want to and say they're good. Thus we get Milano allowed to play against the Jets and NWE in 2020 when he was unable to lift his arm to tackle with his torn pec and brace; Cody Ford allowed to play when he couldn't lift his arm to punch against the Titans etc etc. We especially need realistic assessments of capability from the trainers this week, because it's a playoff game and everyone is going to want to be out there. That's hopeful, actually.

Your opinion is duly noted. A logical person might point out a few things - starting with the fact that I went to the entymological root of the word fan and common definitions of it, then moving on to the point that I did not say that was MY definition - only that one really can't call something faulty logic when it's based on a commonly understood meaning of a word - and in fact I make clear that I consider the admittedly negative Newcam2012 a fan I really don't want to interfere a bit with your froth of righteous indignation, though. Did you have to work yourself up to that, or did it come naturally, like a fine poop? Has this been building up for a while? Did you feel better afterwards? A sense of release? No, never mind, I don't want to know. Yeah, I'm gatekeeping fandom. Sue me. Someone who's negative and admits it, like @newcam2012, can be a fan to me. Someone like Filthy Beast who is unrelentingly negative and rooting for other teams to win to our detriment is not a Bills fan. Neither is he objective or credible. And if you find that condescending and disrespectful nonsense, I 100% can live with that. In fact, it really won't bother me a bit, that's how comfortable I am with that judgement. Feel free to read my posts or ignore them, as best suits you - but I really think frothing on about HOW I FEEL and MY MOTIVATIONS TO POST, both of which you know nothing about, says way more about you than about me. That's not one I need my hypothetical logical fallacy cheatsheet to decode - that's called an "Ad Hominem", where a person personally attacks the arguer, rather than the argument. Cheers!

That's credibility I guess - of a sort

I'm guessing to practice squad, in place of Fournette. It makes sense. Haack had a year of experience holding for Bass in 2021 and Bass had a career high FG %. Haack's net yards per punt was a career low here at 42.7, but it's better than a 1-legged punter and it shouldn't hurt/might help Bass.

"Being critical" isn't the issue here. Most of us are critical at times. Being publicly unrelentingly negative and critical is the issue. One can argue the point as to whether someone being consistently critical/pessimistic/negative in public makes them less of a fan. It's really not my main point here, but I'll just point out that "fan" is short for "fanatic", and like its root word, is supposed to denote a person marked by "excessive enthusiasm and often intense uncritical devotion", in sports by extreme enthusiasm or devotion to a team. So yeah, at the very root of the definition of fan, someone who is unrelentingly and constantly critical or pessimistic actually may not fit the definition of fan as many understand it. In addition, in a human relationship, someone who claims extreme devotion and love but expresses that with unrelenting criticism, pessimism, and negativity is considered to show toxic or even emotionally abusive relationship behavior. You consider it "flawed logic" to call someone who is overthetop and unrelentingly negative and critical "not a fan" only a unique, personal definition of fan where unstated devotion and support are combined with unrelenting public negativity and criticism. My main point is that one of the claims made by Filthy Beast is that he is objective and credible. Go back and look: do any of those quotes from Twitter support a claim of being objective or credible? 1) believes NFL is fixed - "no way the NFL allows anything but a Chiefs vs Ravens/Texans AFCCG 2) praying the Jaguars win so that the Bills "team and coach will be exposed in the biggest of moments" - how can even a critical, negative fan pray for outcomes negative to his team? 3) don't waste time with PFF crap (one source of supposedly objective performance ratings). the OL has played like *****. Now, league average rush yards per game are 112.7, so in the previous 3 weeks, the Bills generated an average 166 rush YPG which is impossible with a ***** OL...does that sound objective or credible? That FilthyBeast guy is simply not objective or credible, and for you to say "you have no idea whether he's credible or not" and then dismiss evidence to that point, is flawed logic - on your part. As for you: You openly acknowledge that you are extremely critical and think for the worst. I totally respect you as a fan for acknowledging this. You aren't claiming to be objective and credible. That's fair, one of the roots of being a fan(atic) is that one isn't usually objective and credible. Stepping aside from the above point that one can make a logical argument that being extremely and unrelentingly negative and critical may be incompatible with being a fan by some common definitions - I can live with a fan who is negative and critical if they acknowledge it. I do think that you need to look at yourself if you can perceive that you're wearing overly critical and negative blinders and not blame "past trauma as a 50 year Bills fan". Some of my earliest memories in the early to mid '60s are watching the AFL Championship game with my Grandpa. So I've been a fan 59-ish years. We certainly lived together through some very bad Bills times. Grandpa is gone now, he died in 1987 and missed the epic Bills teams of the late 80s/early 90s. And yeah, I have some BBFS (Buffalo Bills Fan Syndrome PTSD). But I don't let it govern me.