Beck Water

I see 5 active WR on yesterday's gameday roster. Strangely enough, this was achieved through NFL rules without the need to inactivate Tre White on IR. See above. This is not correct.

Players go on the injury report when....wait for it...they're injured in a game and receiving treatment, or are limited and don't fully participate in practice. Players coming off IR or PUP do NOT go on injury report for the same injury when they are practicing fully (and possibly still receiving "routine" treatments). "Practicing fully" does not necessarily mean "performing better than Elam and Benford in practice"

How do you know this?

I don't want to appear to support the OP's post, but I think it's pretty inarguable that the Bills haven't done enough to bolster the offense. In Carolina, the philosophy seemed to be that Cam Newton would make up for inadequacies at WR and on OL, and that seems to have continued here. I understand the Bills drafting Kaiir Elam in the first round when they didn't know when Tre would be back and what his play would be like. Groot in the 1st round in 2021 also looks like a win. I think a number of us look at the 2nd and 3rd round picks in the last 2 drafts and wonder if double-dipping at DE (last year) and drafting an RB for the 3rd time in 3 years and an undersized LB (this year) was the best use of those picks vs. WR or OL.

I think you need to clarify what those "latest reports" to which you refer are about. I think those "latest reports" are all speculation from outside the building - you know, the same sources that had Allen out for 3-4 weeks with a UCL

We should have, but we didn't I have to admit, after the Bills own lackluster performance against the Vikings, I was kind of frustrated yesterday watching the Dallas D eat Kirk Cousins repeatedly while Dak Prescott rocked an 88% completion rate. I do wonder how much Harrison Phillips made a difference for the Vikings. Not so much for his play on the field, but he and Allen are apparently close friends, and I wonder how much insight he was able to offer with regard to his tendencies, as well as detailed knowledge of the Bills defense, maybe play calls and etc. The NFL is a match-up league.

So since the Vikings snuck back and ate the Bills at the end of the game, does this mean you think the Lions gonna beat the beloved Buffalo Bills on Thanksgiving?

OK, but you are omitting the context of the above remarks - which were that he was in such a dark place after the surgery that he was hiding in his basement and wouldn't come out, and Bills staffers had to come to his house and drag him out of there. It's not exactly news that football players can become depressed ("go to a dark place") after injury, especially mobility-limiting injuries. These guys are often adrenaline junkies (since grade school!) and don't know what to do with themselves mentally without the catharsis of practice and games. Often they have succeeded by being "laser focused" on football and not much else. It's also not exactly news that a guy who is in a "dark place" and had to be hauled out of his own basement would be encouraged by the team to start some mental therapy, and part of the mental therapy would encourage him to reflect on other aspects of his life than football and how much he has to contribute as a husband, father, community member, and man. Tre missed the entire off-season, training camp, and pre-season. It's not outrageous to think he might need more than 2-3 weeks of practice to get back into full game shape. He can't do that on IR. We are now coming up on his 4th game after being returned to the active roster, where it's become reasonable to start thinking "yeah, he ought to be able to go out there, and if he's not, did they botch the timeline of when they opened his 21 day window to return from PUP or, is something else going on?

Yeah, but we do need a back-up center if Van Roten is it. Bates has played center in the past, but then we're changing 2 guys.

You do know this year, up to 8 players on IR can be re-activated after 4 games? So placing Hyde on IR did not preclude returning him to play this season. That said...I think there's "recovery" and "ready to play football recovery", and the conclusion that the neck and shoulder area are not, somehow, as critical to the play of a tackling player as his legs kind of boggles my mind a bit. For most of us, "recovery" might mean "I can go home, bathe and dress, drive, walk around, and sit in a desk chair". That's probably your 8 weeks, and Hyde if anything is probably ahead of schedule as witness his return to the Bills facility a couple weeks ago. For football players, recovery means after they get to that point, the hard work of strengthening all the supporting structures of the neck, shoulder, and back to prevent future re-injury may begin.

All respect, I think you might be mixing two things. I think Wawrow WAS talking about internal conflicts or some kind of internal dysfunction this season. He introduced a tid-bit about last season where there was a conflict that could have divided the team and may have contributed to last season's slump but was resolved, I think as an example. I agree with you - while I respect John Wawrow quite a lot as a journalist, I'm not a fan of the twitter "teaser" of "I know something but I can't/won't tell you" To a Brit, "Pitch" = "playing field" There's complaints from the NFLPA about slit flim artificial turf having a higher injury rate. That was the field surface where Tre White injured his ACL in NO. The Vikings and the Lions play on slit film turf

Inarguable since they were just beaten One could say the same thing about Tennessee and Minnesota - both are good teams but have weaknesses and are beatable. Not quite what was said around here when Ed Oliver was charged with DUI Also not quite what the NFL personal conduct policy says

Well, since it was a response to a guy opining that his two favorites to win the Superbowl are Minnesota and Tennessee, I would say off hand that it probably doesn't. Thread drift is a Thing

And then there is this

Nice deflection/distraction

The video of the press conference I saw, looked like it was NOT filmed from his office but rather from another location, where he'd placed a Bills football helmet on the window behind him. The windows had "pane" grids, and he lacked the usual items that are on his office windowsill behind him. Are you sure McDermott was in his Highmark office, and not an office at home?

Correct, it's a video of just rookies. Actual video of actual Dawson Knox (in the white/grey coat with the dark cap at the start) I think we just had a beautiful calibration of how much validity to assign to any opinion that previous poster expresses about the Bills.

The airport is open. It's the Bills charter plane. It isn't gonna leave until they're on board. Right, I Got That. I'm talking about, does anyone know if the normal 2-3 semi trailers (or cargo plane) full of football gear made it? That could happen. Maybe the Bills staff made an agreement with the Lions staff to use some of their on-site equipment.

So here's a question: did the semi trucks make it out? The Bills have in the past put out videos showing the normal away game process where they load up, I think it was 2 truckloads worth of uniforms, training tables and equipment, all the "stuff" they normally bring with them.

Dude. According to Spotrac, Blake Martinez has career earnings of $28.9M. Despite the implications of the article, I doubt that selling the Pokeman card had a significant impact on Martinez decision to retire; it had at mmost a 2% impact on his pile of cash You think Tre White plans to sell Pokeman cards? You do you, but in context, I don't think it was weird at all. White talked openly about being in "a dark place" after the injury and rehab, holed up in his basement. The Buffalo Bills sent training staff to haul him out of there, and no doubt got him hooked up with mental health professionals. He said he learned that there's more to being Tre White than playing football, and once he could move again he enjoyed playing with his kids. Again, You do You, but it seems pretty standard to me that a guy who suffers a sudden stop of an all-consuming career might be depressed and might need to reflect about other aspects of his life. If that's where Tre is, he could simply retire. None of us know what's going on with Tre. We do know that Tre has his own medical team and both that team and the Bills need to agree he is ready to play. It is possible it is a mental issue. It is also possible there is some benchmark for functional recovery he has not yet met.

There seems to be a couple omissions from your discussion, notably the Eagles. What's not to like about the football product they're showing the NFL this season? They've got a top 10 defense (#8 currently), they have a pretty good run game (#6 for yds). They have a running back who gets more attempts and yds than their QB. Their passing game is #25 for attempts but inching towards top-10 for yds (currently #11). Most importantly, they are #1 for turnovers on both offense AND defense - they don't beat themselves.

I think there are points on both sides regarding the OC/QB relationship. A talented QB can make a mediocre OC look better than he is, sure. But an OC who isn't up to the job can make a talented QB look mediocre, and a servicable QB look awful. The quintessential example would be the 2015-2016 Rams with Frank Cignetti then Rob Boras as OC. The QB were Nick Foles, Case Keenum, and Jared Goff. None of them looked competent to run a professional NFL offense in those years. Within 2 years, Foles won a Superbowl for the Eagles then next year, took them to the division round of the playoffs; Keenum took the Vikings to 11-3 and a conference championship; Goff took the Rams to 11-5, a division win, then next year 13-3 and a Superbowl appearance. Are any of them great NFL QB? Probably not, but it can't be a coincidence that all 3 looked so bad with the Rams and those OCs, then changed coaches/OCs and went on to strong seasons and some playoff success. Trevor Lawrence is looking much better this year with Press Taylor/Doug Pederson than he looked last season with Darrell Bevel/Urban Meyer. Daniel Jones looked like he might have something, his rookie year with Mike Shula/Pat Shurmer. He looked bad the next two seasons with Jason Garrett/Joe Judge. Now with Mike Kafka/Brian Daboll he looks good again. Tua looks better this year with Frank Smith/Mike McDaniel than he looked his first 2 seasons. So, to Brian Daboll. Yes, in Cleveland, he didn't have a QB. He had Brady Quinn and Colt McCoy. In Miami, he had Matt Moore (who I think can be serviceable) and Chad Henne (no). Daboll arguably got more out of Moore than his previous stints. Then in Kansas, he had Matt Cassel who had a good year (10-5) 2 years prior in KC, and a previous good year in NE - so he arguably could be serviceable - and Brady Quinn again. There's a point to be made that Daboll showed mixed results for maximizing and making the best use of what offensive talent he had. He arguably got the best out of Matt Moore; he didn't get the best out of Matt Cassel but maybe you're right that Cassel was broken, IDK. I think there's an argument to be made that in a couple of those stops, there was more running game and more short passing game to be had.

Says Buffalo Airport re-opened a couple hours ago https://buffalonews.com/news/local/buffalo-airport-reopens-runways/article_0c762284-6816-11ed-abcc-db0aebb72ba4.html 3:30 pm should be 20:30 UTC Text:KBUF 191523Z 1915/2012 21019G27KT P6SM -SN OVC030 Forecast period:1500 UTC 19 November 2022 to 0200 UTC 20 November 2022 Forecast type:FROM: standard forecast or significant change Winds:from the SSW (210 degrees) at 22 MPH (19 knots; 9.8 m/s) gusting to 31 MPH (27 knots; 13.9 m/s) Visibility:6 or more sm (10+ km) Ceiling:3000 feet AGL Clouds:overcast cloud deck at 3000 feet AGL Weather:-SN (light snow) Sounds flyable as long as the crew is in town and rested and the plane is available

John? John Wawrow, is that you?

My guess - and this is a guess by analogy from being involved in a bunch of project teams including prize-winning teams in my line of work - is that there is probably internal conflict and dissent on almost every winning football team. It bubbles under the surface when things go well, and emerges like Swamp Thing (remember that comic?) when adversity strikes. Coaches don't become HC or coordinators seeking the opportunity to become HC without sizeable egos. Top players invariably have egos. Didn't Bruce Smith or another member of the Superbowl Bills famously say to Marv Levy "I don't know how you managed all of the egos" to which Levy riposted "Neither do I"? I'm sure there was dissent between Daboll and McDermott last year when McDermott was publicly pressuring Daboll for a better run game, while Daboll was pushing back "we only have 1 first round pick on the offensive side of the ball". As someone commented when that storyline came out with the Flores situation "it's not uncommon". I'm sure there is some feeling "WTF, we're supposed to have a top run defense and you guys give up >150 yds on the ground 2 weeks running?". There are probably team feelings about Tre White being on the active roster but not playing while Poyer and Elam are out, Jackson is playing through some kind of stinger and Benford played through a broken hand. He's now missed 4 weeks, so the question must get raised "why didn't they put him on IR and let another guy "get fed" on the active roster?" or maybe just keep him on PUP longer? There are probably feelings about the RB not getting more chance because if he isn't kept here, Singletary wants to be able to make a case for a good contract. Davis wants to make a case for himself. Knox wants to justify the contract he got. Meanwhile, I don't believe for a "team-first" say-the-right-thing in public minute that Diggs doesn't want recognition as a top WR in this league or Josh doesn't want to be league MVP; he isn't gonna get there by dinkin' and dunkin'. I'm sure it's a constant balancing act to manage and balance all that and leash the egos and if the coaches don't have the right whips-and-chairs handy, it can probably spiral out of control damned quickly.