Beck Water

I see it differently. She wasn't Josh's high school GF, though the families knew each other. She hitched her star to his during his first year playing for Wyoming when he was predicted to be drafted in the 1st round (but decided to stay in school). So I believe he was already predicted to be a 1st round draft pick with at least $4.5M signing bonus and $9M overall (32nd pick) when they started dating. I don't know the woman, since she was with him for 6 years hopefully they loved each other and had good times, but purely looked at from 10,000 ft view it wasn't like Brenda Warner or Fred Jackson's wife where they stuck with their husbands when they were stocking grocery shelves or playing arena ball.

I think Allen recognizes that other players had great seasons and could have been considered the MVP I don't think Tom Brady and Allen are that good of friends.

I think Shady McCoy ought to get an "I told you so" When he left Buffalo he was like "He's gonna be great, You'll See."

Sam Monson and Aaron Schatz LOL

Military and civilian aviation share airspace and sometimes airports all over the.country without particular problems as long as they’re talking to the same controllers (which these were). Reading the ASRS and some other articles, it appears that near misses aren’t limited to the military helicopters, there are apparently civilian medivac helicopters which have been involved. I’m not down with finger pointing and assigning cause before an investigation is complete, so we’ll see how that goes. As a general issue, IMHO having a heavily used helicopter flyway which passes ~200 ft below the altitude a jet flying a stabilized approach will pass through on a standard approach to a heavily used airport just seems like a Very Bad Idea. It seems to me clearance for that helicopter route should be withheld while those runways are in use for landing. That’s an operational decision that goes above the level of the guys and gals manning the tower though.

FWIW, an aircraft on final approach to land at 400 ft AGL or less would normally not execute a steep bank as an avoidance procedure, for a number of reasons The normal procedure would be to gain altitude ASAP. This is called a "go around" and should always be an option to a landing pilot for whatever reason - cow on the runway etc. Pilot tells the tower "(Call sign) is going around", puts in the throttles to gain altitude, follows subsequent ATC instructions as to heading and altitude, when the plane is stabilized tell them the reason that choice was made "be advised there appears to be a large cow on the approach end of runway one two" A glance at the runway diagram of DCA would show that a plane turning away from the helicopter would be turning into the flight path for Rwy 1.

https://www.reuters.com/graphics/USA-CRASH/WASHINGTONDC-AIRCRAFT/dwvkkwyzxvm/ Shows "Route 4" (the Class B clearance the helicopter received), the path of the helicopter, and the path of the airplane. The altitude clearance for Route 4 is "at or below 200 ft" in that area. Guardian article: On the helicopter track indicated on the map, it appears the copter deviated from Rt 4 towards the approach end of the runway. Caveat: it has been asserted that the helicopter was not broadcasting ADSB, which might contribute to the apparent "jagged" flight path and would certainly hinder both the controller and the pilot's ability to detect the confliction. I do not know the reliability of this assertion. ---------- This article details previous "near misses" from NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting Database, which is an anonymous reporting system maintained with the goal of improving safety: https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/30/us/dca-plane-helicopter-crash-invs/index.html Chances are good that for every report, there are more incidents that were not reported. It's pretty clear that close encounters between military helicopters and civilian traffic landing at DCA are common enough that they have been "normalized" to ATC. The controllers rely upon the helicopter following the route they've been cleared to fly (below 200 ft, along the W bank of the Potomac) and following visual separation rules (paraphrase: "Do you see that plane?" "Traffic in sight" "Stay out of its way" "Roger") But basically, a helicopter flying its cleared route precisely has the potential to come within hundreds of feet of a landing passenger jet flying its cleared approach precisely. And especially at night, there is always the potential that the traffic the pilot confirms seeing is not the traffic the controller is pointing out. This blogger calls it IMHO: "We’ve basically seen the normalization of planes and helicopters flying hundreds of feet apart with visual separation, and sooner or later, that’s not going to end well, as it leaves virtually no margin." He points out: "It’s not like air traffic controllers can start restricting military helicopters and keeping them out of their airspace, without intervention on a higher level."

I think Beane's seat could be heated up a bit. I think it's probably more nuanced than "McD good, talent bad" I would say the aggregate talent level is above average - the Jimmies and Joes have to have something McD can work with. And above average is fine for defeating most teams. But there are two problems: 1) McD's defense depends upon everyone working together, and when you lose more than 1 starter, the interdependence that makes it work starts to break down 2) When we face the top teams, we need 1-2 "game wreckers", guys who can take over a game and change it. And we just don't have that on defense. We don't have a Chris Jones, or a TJ Watt, or a Maxx Crosby.

Yeah, it's just amazing how some people are hacked by someone who makes one craptastic post on one media platform then nothing else.

You are not wrong.

No

I'm concerned that the Bills "Tua'd" Benford - rushed him back from a concussion where he really should have had a week off. Ya gotta wonder if Elam had had the #1 reps in practice during the week and/or if the gameplan would have been built more around his strengths, would it have had a different result?

I thought that was a really tough catch for Kincaid at the end. But doesn't change your point. When the top receiver in the game for the Bills is Mack Hollins, we need help at receiver. In the big moment, our guys simply were not clutch.

Dude. The Bills D got 3 stops on the Chiefs - a fumble and 2 punts. The Chiefs D got 4 stops on the Bills - 2 punts and 2 TOD. One more stop. That's what it comes down to. It's hard to win championships if your defense can't get 4 stops.

Well he does like to push off

we need a middle finger emoji for you posting this @YoloinOhio. And you know I love ya. But in my dreams, it was holding on the KC Oline, so the Bills declined, and we're still going to the Superbowl

Or maybe he wasn't. As far as I'm concerned a visit to Chiefs Planet requires Level 4 Biosafety Precautions with observed and directed decontam. IIRC even our resident Chiefs fan visitors @Zerovoltz and @Billl steer clear of that cesspool

It sounds as though we can agree that Slovik may be a bit of a scapegoat for the Texans offensive woes to which WR and OL injuries contributed heavily (though I haven't listened to the Chris Simms video that was shared upthread so I could change my mind I guess) As far as him being overrated by the Bills fan base, I dunno about the Bills fan base as a whole but FRFR we got a segment here who seem to over-rate 1) any coach who is not named Sean McDermott. 2) especially if they have an offensive background and have coached an offense with 1 year of success

I think he understands it's a big game. But he doesn't have the weight of 3 playoff losses to KC in 4 years, including an AFCCG and 13 seconds on his shoulders.

When has McDermott ever used the word "optimistic" in regard to an injured player? He'll say "trending in the right direction" or "we'll see"

I think there's a good bit of revisionist history in that. Reid was doing what he thought (rightly or wrongly) was best for the team and himself first, and thinking of what was best for McDermott very much as an afterthought. I dunno about that phone call to Rivera and how much influence it had - "hey, I've got this great young subordinate, I'm firing his ass but I think he'd be a great hire for you" only goes so far as a job recommendation in any field. Be that as it may, Reid certainly didn't tell McDermott "you suck, you can't coach, I'm kicking you to the curb".

Well, Reid did fire McDermott. And then hire Juan Castillo, the offensive line coach, to replace him as DC (that went about as well as one might predict lol)

I could be wrong, but I think it's not uncommon for the C/Oline coach to handle protections for a young QB (rookie or 2nd year). Pretty sure McVay did it for Goff, which led to a fall-off as they transitioned to Goff taking it over. I actually think the Bills were unusual in that from the start, they expected Allen to do it - leading to an unnecessary number of sacks and QB hits his first couple years when he got it wrong. If I'm remembering correctly Allen said in an interview that he's embarrassed now to realize how little he "understood our protections" his first year. Anyway good find, Thanks! and I'll give it a listen!

Ha. Um, No. Interesting perspective. I'm interested if this is your theory or do you have some inside info and know this for fact?