Beck Water

NFL Insider Ian Rapoport summarizes what he knows to date: https://www.nfl.com/news/no-deal-imminent-for-odell-beckham-jr-following-free-agency-visits If Rapoport is correct (and he has good connections to teams and players) Beckham was not offered anything close to a firm contract from any team. Beckham is not ready to play football at this time Reading between the lines, it doesn't sound as though any of the three teams were prepared at this time to offer a "big money multi-year deal" to a 32 yr old coming off his 2nd ACL surgery, who is not yet running a full route tree in football gear, and who claims he is ready to contribute to the playoffs but "doesn't see the point" of playing in the regular season. From what Rapoport wrote, teams were prepared to offer a low-money 2022 deal with a big-money (maybe incentivized) contract the following season or a low-money 1 yr deal. But that might not make sense for Beckham. He could play well and contribute, then be well aligned for a multi-year FA deal. Or he could get injured again and have nothing. I say take down the tent on this circus. Frankly, the only way to get into the playoffs is to grind for 17 games. And as McDermott would say "nothing is given, everything is earned." We see year after year teams who were expected to contend, like the Rams and Denver, fizzle while teams from whom little was expected, like the Seahawks, Eagles, and Vikings, rise. The whole idea of a guy who explicitly states that "he doesn't see the point" of him grinding away to earn a playoff berth, he wants to walk in with fresh legs and grab at the ring, just strikes me as troublesome to team cohesion. We're not the contender discussed in that article. He's talking about the Eagles Given that the Eagles have AJ Brown and Devonte Smith, and are #26 in the league for passing attempts, why would they want him?

Do we know the refs for today? I may have missed it

Wait. Dawkins is a huge pro wrestling fan, and his brother is a pro wrestler in Hawaii with the ring name "Giant Leather"? Who knew about this? @Chandler#81? Agree with you of course about Dawkins should win.

He got fined $50k for this. Saints got $550k: https://twitter.com/TomPelissero/status/1601627325334183936?s=20&t=az3cNHzJ5foSJ-da37Jy2A https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/12/10/nfl-levies-550000-in-fines-for-allegedly-fake-cam-jordan-injury-on-monday-night/

Saleh is a good coach, who, prior to last game, Josh Allen owned (including while in SF) It will help the Bills D to have Poyer and Tre White, and hopefully Rousseau will be in all game. If Milano can't go, I expect to see AJ Klein and a reprise of the slightly altered coverage scheme that allowed him to become DPOW against the Chargers. I think an under-appreciated aspect of having our vets in at DB is that Frazier can open the playbook as far as disguised coverage. Mike White threw 8 INTs in 4 games last season and the Bills collected 4 of them. Last meeting was the middle of a 3 game stretch where the Bills sucked against the run. To my eyes, this was the result of guys not being gap-sound in assignment, with Phillips one of the chief offenders (but Rousseau is really good against the run so losing him hurt). Benford didn't help, and when he did make a tackle he seemed to get trucked 5 yds upfield. Still, if Allen hadn't gift-wrapped two INTs, one on 2nd down (SECOND DOWN) in the Jets red zone and one on the Bills 22, OR if we don't miss a 55 yd FG at the end of the half OR if the Bills D doesn't allow a 6:13 drive by the Jets in the 4th including runs of 19, 16, 15, and 9 yards (plus a 6 yd scamper by Wilson), we had plenty of chances to win. Big question: has Mike White learned from his 4 INT game against us last season, or can we do to him what we did then? He threw 2 picks in the game against Minn last week - "promising, very promising!"

https://www.buffalobills.com/team/injury-report/ Didn't see this upthread,but all the sick-o little Jetsies have no game status so are good to go for the game. I hope they still feel like a Buffalo ran over them, before the game Only one who is "questionable" is Michael Clemens, a rookie DLman who appears to be their 3rd string DE Jets IR looks like this: (plus OT Max Mitchell on non-football injury which is probably a scum move by the Jets for a rookie who played 6 games for them) T Mekhi Becton - Reserve/Injured FB Nick Bawden - Reserve/Injured T Cedric Ogbuehi - Reserve/Injured RB Breece Hall - Reserve/Injured OL Greg Senat - Reserve/Non-Football Injury OL Alijah Vera-Tucker - Reserve/Injured

I agree, especially since apparently Zimmer is very smart. So I'm sure by now Miami has all the defensive schemes and offensive play designs and calls we used while he was here.

https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/G/GillRe00.htm#snap_counts

Excepting the Pittsburgh game (where he played 70% of the snaps), Shakir has been on the field an average of 26% of the offensive snaps. That's typically 16 snaps per game. I don't think he's in the doghouse. I don't think he's getting open as much as people think, and yes, it's possible he's making route-running and blocking mistakes. If he gets open and makes plays, I'm pretty sure his snap count will increase.

Thank you for being Exhibit A illustrating my point: to a large extent, media today cover what people are interested in and avoid covering what people aren't interested in, even if one can make a case that what people aren't interested in is actually significant and they ought to at least know about/understand why it might matter.... ....original context being @Straight Hucklebuck's plaint that the media asks McDermott a lot of Q that are folksy and not football relevant, instead of hitting hard on things that matter to the team's success like specifics of injuries and the timeline of player return

No, sorry, can't agree on that. It was a catch Davis could have made, but Gardner was fighting with him, Gabe was holding him off, and Gardner had a hold of Davis R arm before the ball got there. Davis got his hand free and could have made the catch, but it woulda been a tough contested catch. IOW it's a ball a top-tier clutch WR makes for his QB and his team, but it's no way "just a drop"

That's great! And, we finally got to meet Squirrel Winters!

OK, sure, if McDermott has not been asked "what's the timeline for Jordan Phillips return from this shoulder injury?" that's 100% fair game. They'd probably hear "day to day" or something like that, but you never know, could hear actual information.

You state feelings I have about many "news" programs these days. I tune in and they're talking about Tom Brady's divorce or something instead of pressing world issues. Here's the thing though: it must be remembered that like news programs today, all of these reporters are there to draw readership and listeners and clicks. Just because you and I could not care less about McDermott's dog eating his donut and would like instead to know medical specifics of Jordan Phillips shoulder injury, the reporters and their editors/managers may have data showing that the majority of readers not only care about the dog and the donut, they want to know the breed of the dog, the flavor of the donut, and if the donut was chocolate did McD call the vet? Same thing with Tom Brady's divorce. If the watchers care about Tom Brady's divorce more than the state of the power grid in Ukraine, that's what we'll get. Medical information is private. If Dawkins chooses to disclose he's got a high ankle sprain, that's his biz. But McDermott really shouldn't disclose Dion's medical information further than NFL injury reporting rules require, where "ankle" suffices. As far as disclosing tactical info about the team, McDermott isn't there for that or to provide you with insight. He's just "there so he doesn't get fined" so to speak.

I totally agree with you about what he's shown to date - lacking that "best ability, availability", and what we have seen of him at WR doesn't look promising. It just seems that the Bills have not given up on him. That old "Can't Coach Speed" thing. My inner *****-stirrer prompts me to point out: the move leaves #11 available.

This Take Aged Well.

Yes, the 3Q was a snoozefest. The 4Q was "what the hell did I just even see?" Can't blame you, but yeah, mistake.

Based on this, I don't want the guy here. Practice during the regular season - especially in Allen's situation where he's said he has to be careful how many reps he gives his elbow during the week - is a "zero sum game". Only so many reps to go around. If you're not playing but you're at practice and taking "good on good" reps, you're taking the reps that could be difference makers for completion or not from a receiver who is playing and trying to help us win so we can GET to the playoffs. If you're not playing and you're not taking reps, how are you getting yourself into "game shape" and building timing and getting on the same mental page with your QB, especially a QB like Allen where thinking the same way on a scramble drill or secondary route concept is important? How are you getting the timing down to block on screens or downfield? If Beckham wants to be given a locker and a hat and paid to take reps from guys who are busting their asses to get us to the playoffs, so he can walk in and "save the day" in the playoffs and get lots of kudos, ***** him and the hoss he rode in on. I don't think that's helpful to the locker room chemistry. Beane doesn't even have to do that. He's got a well-established pattern of keeping contract negotiations "in house". All he has to do is say "it didn't work out" or "we came to a point where we realized we wouldn't be able to reach an agreement"

Thank you. It makes me feel a bit better that I'm not the only one "left out" by that and even more obscure Bills Social Media productions. I'm sure to the relevant target demographic, they're killing it.

Fair enough. Regardless, I think yesterday showed that Boy Genius (McVay) really is a solid, solid coach. He must have been able to quickly pull out of Mayfield what concepts he's most comfortable with, mapped them onto plays the Rams already had installed, and built a game plan around them. Then Baker held up his end by doing whatever he had to do to memorize the verbiage. I did appreciate Baker's reaction to Fitz asking him what's up with the #17 and teasing him "it looks good on you". He didn't like that At All.

I think the players have a good bit of input. For one thing, as "he I shall not name" once said, "it's the players choice to take a pain injection or not". The NFLPA has come out against the use of Toradol for "anticipated pain" and against Toradol injections vs. the pill form, so the players do have the union behind them if the team tries to push them into it. For another thing, they go through physical ability evaluations with the head trainer, sometimes pre-game, and they can influence what they show based on their personal pain tolerance and grit and how much adrenaline they have going on about wanting to play. Sometimes I think it works against them and against the team - Milano played a game when he couldn't lift his arm to tackle partway through. I'm sure he managed to show the head trainer a lifted arm pre-game but he probably only had so many arm lifts he could manage with that partially torn pec. For a third thing, several here have told stories about doing some work in a player's house, or being invited to a gathering as the friend of a friend, and seeing a player who was just injured NOT doing common sense things to take care of a known injury. I think in one anecdote, the guy was playing video games and it wasn't until his wife came home that she brought him a bag of ice and a footstool to elevate his ankle. So how seriously and carefully the player follows what they're told to do by the trainers and physicians probably has a big influence as well. I know we got my daughter recovered from a Grade II ankle sprain and able to play volleyball in under a week though she lost some height on her blocks for more like 2-3. The trainers said they'd never seen a sprain clear so fast, but it was really Hell for her - cold bath for 20 minutes once an hour is uncomfortable and eventually painful to the skin, the rest of the stuff like elevation, compression, arnica massage disrupted her preferred routine. It wasn't a Fun Time at all for her to stick to that routine for 48 hrs post injury. But it clearly made a difference to recovery vs. another player who might not have stuck it out.