Beck Water

Pretty sure that was early in the game, and was Bates snapping. But, I recall some very scary snaps from Van Roten where found myself saying "it's a good thing our QB is 6'6" and has great hands"

Morse played 100% of the snaps vs. Minn. so any problems there were between Morse and Allen (the EZ fumble was, IMO, more on Allen) Morse missed three games last season - he did not play @Miami, @Detroit, or @Chicago. Also missed 50% of the home Miami game.

Morse was the center, but to most people the problem with the exchange looked like it rested more with Josh.

But then Cover1 also says:

Heh. We live in a smaller city adjacent to the StL city line. We did not get a text, nor did we get an estimated time of repair. Our power went out at 4 pm and was out 6.5 hrs. The power in my mom's Sr Living facility went out at 7 pm and is still out, but they do have generators keeping their elevators and kitchen running and their lobby cool, so she's OK I'm glad power outages for you aren't common and on pretty quick. Across the state in the Lou, we don't count on that. When there are literally hundreds of outages affecting hundreds of thousands of customers, we know the crews are working full-go and it's still going to take a while, so we just settle in and wait. The problem with cold for a home is, unless you immediately winterize your plumbing, eventually your pipes will freeze and that can take months to put right and repair. That's why, even though we're experienced winter campers in the Adirondacks and have plenty of quilts and warm clothes, we have generators that will run the igniters for our furnaces. I'm not concerned about keeping my franny warm, I can pick up an ax and attack my neighbor's woodpile for that, she won't complain LOL. I'm concerned about avoiding thousands of dollars in plumbing and wall repairs and waiting for months to get the repairs done if it's a widespread problem.

That's a good tip to serve as your own general contractor to save money. Just as a point of reference, our 2- 2000W inverter generators plus the installation of the external plug for them, and an interlock and power-on alarm for the service panel, cost ~$2,000 or 1/5 that amount. These days we could get a lot more generator power for that money! These are sized to run our refrigerators and chest freezer, the power to both our gas furnaces in the winter, the igniters for our gas stovetop, to keep the UPS for our computer, modem, and router charged, plus incidentals like fans, lights and power packs. We can also power refrigerators for several neighbors. We aren't going to be luxuriating in AC'd comfort, but with the help of old-fashioned tricks about where to locate an exhaust fan at night and how to use ice bottles to make the air from a fan cool, we're comfortable and have food/cooking/heat/light. These days, you can get 9000W of ordinary generator for $900 or ~8000W of inverter generator for $1200. 1800W ordinary generator for $370. The interlock and external power plug make the whole setup much more seamless and useful, call it another $300-400 if you find a licensed electrician who's doing small jobs off hours for extra cash. We could have DIY'd it but since it's an obvious mod to the power panel we wanted it all above board in case we need electrical work or a home inspection. I feel this is worth mentioning because we're into self-reliance, and I want people to know that with a bit of sweat equity they can be prepared not just to maintain their own "necessities" of modern life, but to help neighbors during a power outage or disaster. $10k is beyond the reach of a lot of people, but ~$30/month for a couple of years is more within reach for a lot more people. I'm not sure what it is with our location, but it's not uncommon for the power on my side of the street to go out and stay out for 6 hrs to days, while the power across the street stays on. We lucked out last night, our power was only off for 6.5 hrs because it was a more widespread outage including a bunch of commercial customers. When it's just our block and the houses across the alley from us, we've been out for days at times. Wasn't that '77? I was living in Buffalo at the time. I remember the Blizzard of '77, but I don't remember being without power for weeks in '76. Strange.

I guess it depends upon what one calls “affordable”, how often one needs them, and how much stuff there is to run. What we have isn’t as nice in that it requires some (OK, significant by most people’s standards) setup. But it was literally a fraction of what the whole house generators we priced would have been. I would love solar, but we just aren’t sited for it. Plus, around here usually when the power goes out, there is none for at least a while, sometimes a day or more.

Yeah, the slightly humorous thing is that another neighbor across the street was having freezer problems and came over with a big pan of frozen food to fit in our freezer. Said they were gonna toss the hot dogs and cook up all the steak.

So here I am, sitting comfortably on a sofa with a light breeze from a Dyson airblade fan. I don’t have any lights on at the moment, but that’s a matter of choice. There’s gray daylight coming in the window behind me. I could reach out and flip a switch and say “Let There Be Light”, and there would be. A line of thunderstorms came through about 4 pm. I don’t recall it being forecast, but there it was, rain blowing sideways, light show, boom boom *click* Across the street: power. Our side, Us, neighbors, and a couple hundred of our closest friends on a different feed: Nope. Here’s the Facts of Life in the Midwest: when a couple hundred thousand of your closest friends lose power, the power company will remedy the big outages first and a small outage of a few hundred can just pound sand until the power company gets a Round Tuit, maybe for a day or two or three or four, depending. We don’t have the fancy-pants option, but we are prepared. We hauled out the inverter generators, fueled them up, plugged them into the handy-dandy twist-lock exterior outlet, did some jiggery pokery on the electrical panel, flipped some breakers back on, and Voila! Our modem and router work, our fridge and freezer have power, our i-devices can be re-charged, we can use the igniter and turn on our gas stove. And I can sit in front of a fan, or under a ceiling fan, and turn on an LED light or two if I feel like it. So now we start looking out the window. Neighbor we share resources with has a generator, but it isn’t working. Extension cord for her fridge: no problem. She’s got a modern one, 400W. If this goes on pushing 24 hrs, we’ll figure out how to rotate her chest freezer and ours so they both stay cool. 70 year old neighbor: the woman is a Machine. Drives around all day in a Sprinter van, 100 degree heat, doesn’t matter, delivering furniture and food to people in need, women getting an apartment after a stint in DV shelters, folks who’ve been burnt out and the like. Yeah, we’re gonna see her right. What’s the draw on her fridge, can we handle it without rotating stuff? Yeah, we can, and we got 100 ft of 12 AWG extension cord that will get most of the way to her door. But behind that….we don’t have the capacity. Thw neighbor on the other side, who hasn’t had much to do with us since the Great Squirrel LIberation Excapade, I’d let her use my stove or recharge a battery pack so she can charge her phone and stuff, but her fridge is strictly On It’s Own. So here we are, To Have and To Have Not, Midwestern Style. I can make a difference to us, and a couple neighbors, but I know there are a bunch of families who can’t afford it who are gonna lose a fridge full of food, and there’s just not much I can do about that.

I will admit it: I thought Mike McDaniel was a little punk who was way over his head as a HC. But, even though he sounds incoherent to me when he talks to the media, he's apparently Got It Going On when he tries to relate to the players. Last year they believed, and they went hard for him. But their record was still only 9-8. McDaniel took over a Dolphins team that was 10-6 then 9-8 the two years before he took over. And it's not like it was a talentless team, or a team with a bad culture; they actually had a lot of talent. So he, as of now, has not shown that the team has taken a step vs. previous coaches/seasons. That said....a lot of head coaches have a good 1st season because the change brings new energy and buy-in to the team, only to fizzle for various reasons. Matt Nagy: before he arrived 5-11. First year 12-4. Then 8-8 x2, 6-11 FIRED Adam Gase: before he arrived 6-10. First year 10-6. Then 6-10, 7-9, FIRED Todd Bowles: before he arrived 4-12. First year 10-6. Then 5-11 x2, 4-12, FIRED That's not the only pattern of course. My points are: 1) McDaniel didn't achieve a better record with his team during his 1st season 2) McDaniel inherited a team with a lot of talent, including the QB he's apparently gonna ride-and-die with, Waddle, Gesicki, etc 3) It's early days to tell whether McDaniel will, long term, improve the team's record.

On the one hand, that's always been true. Look at our own Thurman Thomas. On the other hand, I think personnel who can truly play multiple roles from multiple formations AT AN ELITE LEVEL on a regular basis, are and will continue to be relatively rare. Or to put it in concrete terms, Gesickis are a lot more common than Gronkowskis or Kelces.

Beasley. Hmmmm......I think you're onto something. I'll reiterate here the argument I've made in more detail in the Spring/Summer. What was missing from the Bills offense last season, especially towards the end of last season, were the quick short to intermediate throws. The blitz and pressure beaters. Now there are multiple possible reasons for this: -Dorsey play design/calling -Josh UCL injury changing throwing motion that returned him to his college/rookie/2019 struggles with accuracy there -early success at the "long bomb" combined with changes at coaching getting to Josh's head and failing to curb his aggressive, "Brett Favre says touchdowns first" mentality But the really screaming and obvious one is: lack of the reliable, trusted, "always open" slot target that Beasley presented in 2019-2021. Once Crowder was injured, it was pretty clear that Josh simply didn't trust McKenzie or Shakir the same way (or Hines, for that matter). I think if we successfully rebuild that short/intermediate target rappore with Kincaid and a combination of Harty, Sherfield, and Shakir, then Davis will magically look better. It's not entirely "on Gabe" to improve. Davis was 2nd in the league in Y/R. He was a deep target for Josh last year. He saw a lot of overthrows, a lot of throws forced into tight coverage, a lot of late throws that were a bit off-target because Josh was scrambling around extending the play. Did Davis have his struggles with drops, and his struggles with route running, Yes. But improved use of the short/intermediate passing game and more selective targeting of Davis would immediately improve his catch % with no action on Davis' part. Exactly. In addition, Harty looked brilliant his one good year, but it was...one good year. Sherfield looked solid last year but it was behind Waddle and Hill. We have high hopes, but not so high that it would be wise to stake the season on them.

I don't entirely agree that Davis isn't "a number 2 WR at all". I think Davis isn't a number 2 only when compared with the #2 on teams that have 2 #1 WR - Bengals, Eagles, Miami. But with the bolded part, I agree completely.

I think you could have stopped right there. Meaning no offense, since hey, it's still the off season and no practice today, so what all do we have to talk about? I'm pretty sure Isabella is here because he's fast, and Beane is always willing to see if there's something his coaches can get out of a fast player. Someone pointed out (sorry, don't remember who for credit) and I think it's a good point - one role for Isabella could be "that fast guy on the scout team helping the D prepare to face fast guys". That suggestion was a lightbulb "Oh, so that's why!" moment for me. So the idea might be to have a fast vet who's worn out his welcome as a starter, and could maybe be stashed on the PS for that reason, and if by some chance he shows a lot in camp he could maybe earn a shot. Fast rookies or young players on PS tend to get sniped on waivers because other teams wanna see what they've got. We've seen it year after year - players "flash" in camp and become fan favorites, only to disappear in the regular season. We don't even know if Kincaid will look the same in pads at this point, much less against a physical defense determined to take him away. So it's great that they look good, but smart GMs don't rate their chickens too carefully based on preseason. What you say is true. But Beane's pattern in these situations is to use the hell out of the player while he's under contract in a contract year and then thank him for his service and wave goodbye - not trade him while he's still under contract. Bottom line up front: the Bills have one of the thinnest WR rooms for a contender. As far as guys who have proven they can make the plays on Sunday in the season, we have Diggs, Davis, "if healthy one year" on Harty, "one year behind Hill and Waddle who teams were petrified of" for Sherfield, a guy who flashed occasionally and made gaffes (not unusual for a rookie) in Shakir, and an actual rookie. Trading the teams #2 receiver and making our already thin WR room even thinner, would be a horrid move for a team that hopes to contend. 1) it's the start of camp 2) Allen has been focusing somewhat on Diggs, understandable since Diggs missed all of OTAs, didn't participate in the team portion at mandatory minicamp, and reportedly didn't travel to Cali to throw with Josh before training camp. 3) Allen has new targets to build chemistry with, including Kincaid, Harty, Sherfield, and Shorter. Wait and see.

It's been pretty widely reported that Belicheck runs the show. And I don't know of a HC in the league that allows anyone else to choose his coaching assistants.

As Mark Sanchez once said on TV, "I would never say they cheat. I would say that they're relentless in their search for a competitive advantage"

It would be a great mistake for a franchise to start making personnel decisions, including coach and GM, based upon a player's friendship with the owner. Ya Hate Ta See It. 🍿🍿 BTW Ben Volin is legit and has sources, but he also has a track record of sometimes being quite wrong. So I'd get out the salt shaker for all this. Interesting though, thanks for posting! I'm thinking about this, and I believe one has to factor in his choices of OC and DC into his "quality of coaching" evaluation. Matt Patricia and Joe Judge as OCs last season was a stunning gaffe. And it's not clear having his son call the defense is a smart move.

I mean, if football is truly positionless, then describing offensive personnel sets would also be meaningless. At this point, though, I think one would have to say that there are exceptions, but the clear majority of the time neither is true.

Perhaps, but given that their top 3 WR are pretty much set in stone and that their OC is going into his 5th season, I'm gonna guess not much impact. The main issue is that if they bring him back too soon, it might linger.

I'm sorry if I misunderstood you. You said "Hines was a RB to return. Isabella is a WR to return. Same roster spot different position, but, same position. Players get hurt too. Great player to hedge bets with." I interpreted that as you believing Hines and Isabella were on the same level as potential PR/KR. In fact, Isabella's experience with KR is minimal, and his PR is one. One return, one yard. So sure, he's signed to the roster to show what he can do. But in the sense of providing a proven alternative at KR/PR, No.

LOL. Preseason depth charts are notably meaningless, kind of like pre-season "power rankings". Which is why the Bills website simply says "depth chart will be announced at a later date". For that matter, in-season depth charts just slot all the 53 players onto a chart, which is why you would find stuff like Andre Smith backing up Matt Milano; when Milano was actually injured, is that who we'd see on the field? Hell to the No's! Look, I wish Shakir well. Rookie to 2nd year are expected to take a big step and I hope he does. But let's not fluff up his experience and its results last season to make him into a proven and reliable returner, or use the first 3 days of training camp to craft a narrative to that effect. If that's true, the problem is that a large portion of the playbook the team has been practicing goes away. Who do you see as the "21" personnel and why would that be the go-to?

I'm pretty sure that the websites who track are all getting their info from a couple of sources. So this would really be a great question to ask someone who subscribes to these sources and has access to the info - PFF, there's another one that starts with "S", maybe "Sports Statistical Information"? That's probably wrong, meaning there's a high probability someone will pop up and correct me. Anyway, I can tell you that the free websites I've found who make or made some of this information available, seem to track entirely by player position. Which is not to say that they all do, just that the service that site uses tracks that way. IOW, when Gilliam was listed as a TE, plays where he was in along with a RB and TE weeks where he played as a fullback a fair bit were listed as 1,2; when Gilliam was listed as a fullback, the same plays were listed as 2,1 and so were plays where played inline. I understand your point, but I'm not sure I agree. The logical extension would be if an RB lines up in the slot, he should be labeled a WR for that play, or if a WR lines up in the backfield and takes a handoff he should be labeled as an RB for that play. Yet as we've seen from this week's training camp, that can all be changed in a couple seconds with pre-snap motion. So I think there is probably value in tracking what actual player positions are on the field.

Well, I'm probably the one who said it, based on what Josh said in a segment of Kyle Brandt's Basement that it forced him back to an overhead, lateral throwing motion instead of the rotational throwing motion he developed that improved his accuracy But I'm not sure that's all there is to it.

Dude. Hines had been one of the top KR/PR in the league for several years Isabella has returned 1 punt for 1 yard, and 8 kickoffs TOTAL in his 4 year career - 5 in the first year Help me understand why you believe the above should entitle him to a roster spot as a KR/PR?

Now think this through a bit. We kept 7 WR in 2021 by having only 2 TE on the roster - Knox and Sweeney. That bit us on the butt when Knox broke his hand and was out a few weeks. It would be foolish, if we're counting on 2 TE sets to be an integral part of the offense, to keep less than 3 (plus Gilliam as a FB/break glass in emergency TE) and it wouldn't be outlandish to keep 4. The roster space has to come from somewhere, and means we're keeping 6 WR max.