Beck Water

Should it? The de-facto GM who drafted N'Keal Harry and Tyquan Thorton is gone On the other hand, Eliot Wolf, the current de-facto GM, was in NE as a consultant, then as Director of Scouting - unclear to me whether he was promoted before or after the draft. So there is that. #1 Wideout, No. #1 Receiver, Yes We have guys with potential, but they have to prove it.

Exactly. If he had all three abilities, chances are we wouldn't have just signed him for a modest contract with a bunch of incentives

Well, he can try, but it's the same principle where it took years to get people to stop calling photocopy machines "xerox"

Speed. 4.37 second 40 time. In theory makes him more able to be a deep threat.

Yeah, I left that part out. Long asked Beane who is the most under-rated player on the Bills, and he named Taron Johnson on Defense and Khalil Shakir on Offense. Definitely some major Shakir Love going down. I don't think Hollins is competing with MVS for a spot. IIRC, Beane mentioned special teams and all the leaders we lost on ST this year, and referred to Hollins as a "glue guy". I think in the past the "glue guys" have been the players who aren't the most talented, but who help keep the team energized and working together, and who grind in whatever role is needed.

You lose. But it's not the question of who is "butt hurt" or offended that's relevant, just as it wasn't the question of who was "butt hurt" or offended that's relevant. Both have the right to speak their minds. Both don't have the right to expect freedom from consequences to accompany their freedom of speech. Kaepernick provided enough credible evidence that he'd been blackballed due to his protests to obtain a settlement from the NFL. I don't expect Butker to suffer any actual consequences. But the issue is the same for both: both have the right to freedom of speech, and in both cases people can support free speech AND object to what they said. But I don't expect you to see that. I do expect you to not put words in my mouth or imagine you know what does or does not offend me. (I don't think you understand it, but you do know it's imposing and unreasonable) I wondered how long it would be before we'd get to the gratuitous personal insults. You don't disappoint. Well, actually, you do, but you don't surprise. OK I don't understand the point you're making here - in fact, I couldn't parse it at all. But that's OK.

To your "even if the bolded is true, so what?" the "so what?" is the apparent hypocrisy of the same people who are up in arms about attempts to "cancel" Butker when they found {*reasons*} why the same attempts towards Kaepernick were OK or even well justified. No one including me is arguing that Benedictine College is not a private college affiliated with the Catholic Church, so you including the definition of "Benedictine" here is beside the point. The point is, a "parochial school" is a small pond. It means literally, a school affiliated with a parish, a small organization within the Catholic church. The impact of a parish school (usually k through 8 grade) is limited. A small little cog even in the local Archdiocese which is a small cog in the Catholic Church. A Catholic university or college which has nationwide or possibly international admission, has bigger scope and is a bigger platform. That's the significant difference. You want to see it as "splitting hairs" and cap it off with some ad-hominem-ish crack about "intellectuals", Whatever. Never did see your response to my attempt to give you a serious and thoughtful response to your valid question about "why care?" - did I just miss that? Or are you just in to pick nits and not interested in the work of the knee length comb-out?

I understand the points you are making. I also have to point out the "I support free speech and hate cancel culture BUT" aspect: seems to me that every time someone wants the views a person is expressing to stop ("cancelled" in the modern lingo), they typically have "but REASONS" why this case is an exception to their free speech support. So you have your "I support ....BUT...." reasons why you feel Kaepernick was different and other people have their "I support.....BUT...." reasons like the foolishness @Bob Jones quoted lobbying to replace Butker with a female kicker SMDH. From one viewpoint they have their similarities.

I think there are times when a player is assumed to speak for a team - which is why the NFL fines players and coaches who openly criticize officiating or NFL policy. There are certainly times when players are asked to do PSAs or publicity appearances for both teams and for the NFL itself, at which times they are assumed to speak for the NFL and the NFL would rightly be held to have "skin in the game" about what they said. It's a pretty good distortion of what Butker said to frame it as "barefoot pregnant and in the kitchen", nor do I think the people who object are framing it that way (I'm certainly not). What Butker actually said was not limited to transgender. He referred to "dangerous gender ideologies", true, but he also talked about the "deadly sin sort of pride that has an entire month dedicated to it", a pretty clear reference to PRIDE month which is about LGBTQ, not simply T. If you think someone is living their life according to "dangerous ideologies" or "deadly sin", is it unreasonable to question whether you believe these people should have a right to live their lives in peace and safety in our communities?

Fair point. I'm pretty confident MVS will make the Bills, barring some trade or FA move that I don't see happening at present. Also not sure I grant the "our RB is better than Pacheco" point - in their 2 years in the league, both have similar Y/Sc and touches, but that's a nit and arguably an appreciation of a different running style. The thing is, in my post (and yours to which I responded), I was talking about the number of improvements we need to sustain an elite passing offense. KC started the year with Pat's "guy", Travis Kelce, who is elite. If I grant that our #3 and #4 WR are better than KCs, the point remains that we're going into the season without one demonstrated "freakazoid" on offense. And there's also the point that last season, KC did not have an elite passing offense until late in the season/playoffs. I believe they finished the season #6 or 8 or something for passing yards, which is great but they were #2 for attempts (!!!) and #3 for completions, which means they weren't getting a lot of y/a (#19 there). And remember that's WITH their future HOF TE on the field. I'm concerned that our passing game is not going to look like "all that and a bag of chips".

Well, he could say "one of the best" or something like that.

Wonder what Rachel Bush will have to say to them on the Twitters?

I had that impression myself. I like Kincaid. I think he has very high potential. I'm also concerned that Beane is very much following the blueprint he saw for roster building in Carolina especially with regard to the WR position

I had no idea one could "come out" as trans or have gender-affirming therapy in Iran. It is still a very conservative theocracy. I googled and officially the government does recognize transgender individuals who have undergone sex reassignment surgery, but according to my info, it's officially considered a mental disorder and there are no laws protecting trans people from discrimination or hate crimes. As a result, assault, exclusion from education and jobs are rife. Source: Iranian-born and educated woman I used to work with.

Bill, you and I think some others keep referring to Benedictine College as a "parochial school". Why? It is literally not a parochial school. I agree with defending his right to speak his mind, and that is, after all, what he was invited to do. But freedom of speech has never meant freedom from consequences arising from that speech, from editorials and social media posts objecting to it, to extra income from jersey sales (I think the players get a %?), to people who want him zapped out of the league. I don't agree with the latter, but it happened with Colin Kaepernick and I have an inkling that some of the same people who wanted Kaepernick kicked to the curb permanently are the same ones objecting to anyone wanting likewise for Butker.

I think it's already been pointed out that the "time when women had more babies than thoughts" originated as satire, and not from Butker. However, as was also pointed out in another post, there are some "tea leaves" indicating that Butker may be an Opus Dei supernumerary or cooperator. And the founder of Opus Dei, St. Josemaría Escrivá, did write that "Women needn’t be scholars—it’s enough for them to be prudent." Good satire is effective because it's an exaggeration of the plausible Also, it's one thing for women who are married or about to be married, to discuss with their partners if they together want children (for traditional Catholics, that's pretty well mandated), and how they want to handle the household finances and raising the children It's another thing to tell young women who are sitting in an auditorium about to be awarded degrees they have worked towards for 4 long years, that "the majority of them" should be more excited about their marriage and the children they will bear". EDIT: OMG, I missed it in my first read-through of his transcript- HE ACTUALLY QUOTES ESCRIVA in his speech "St. Josemaría Escrivá states that priests are ordained to serve, and should not yield to temptation to imitate laypeople, but to be priests through and through......" (this is in the part where he's saying Catholicism has always been counter-cultural when for literally more than a thousand years, Catholicism WAS the predominant driver of culture for Western Europe, then goes on to harshly criticize parish priests, parishes, and bishoprics.) Oh yeah, he's 100% in Opus Dei or wants to be. For those who don't know what is Opus Dei

Now there's a guy who knows how to appreciate fans! I attended my first US MLS game earlier this spring. I loved it! The energy level was amazing. The fan club section was LIT - those guys do NOT skip "arm day" or they wouldn't be beating drums and waving those large flags so enthusiastically all game long. Stadium food was pricy but good. Overall 8 out of 10, strongly recommend. (the 2 points off are for this stadium's policy of disallowing empty aluminum or plastic bottles to be brought in by fans. I feel in midwestern heat, water is a life essential and fans should be able to fill a bottle from the fountains)

Thanks for your response. You duplicated posts, by the way; NBD but you might want to delete one. As far as hard to believe, no, it's not hard to believe that individually, they can improve. In the post you're responding to, I laid out the jump in production by Beasley, Brown, and Diggs upon joining the Bills and having Allen as their QB. What I think is wishful thinking, is that we'll get the number of improvements we need to sustain an elite passing offense. Even Kansas City struggled through the season offensively and finished with the 15th ranked offense, though Mahomes did pass for 4,183 yds - and their offense still had Kelce as its linchpin. Fortunately for them, Rice "got it" and took off towards the end of the season, and the rest is history. So something similar could happen with the Bills, although, KC was carried through the season by great defense and I'm not sure our defense is gonna be there this year.

I'm trying to stay out of a lot of this, but I think it's very possible Butker is an Opus Dei supernumerary. I thought there were various tells - the focus on vocation (Opus Dei is about finding sanctity through an ordinary life of work), the criticism of parishes and parish priests (Opus Dei have their own priests who are regarded as superior), the strong preference for mass in Latin. Opus Dei is a secretive organization, and supernumeraries can not disclose their membership without permission from a superior or discuss their actual beliefs, but fundamentally it seems any changes to the church from the '50s on are anathema. In America (dunno about elsewhere) they seem to align quite a bit from fundamentalist evangelical Christian beliefs and to have similar goals for promoting legislation and influencing public policy. Formally Opus Dei is "committed to the equal dignity of men and women", and female numeraries and supernumeraries have careers. BUT, care for the family and the home are regarded as "eminently feminine" - for example, there's a category of "assistant numeraries" who clean and care for Opus Dei centers, and they are all women. Opus Dei was founded in Spain in 1928 and steeped in the social attitudes of that time and place. The founder, Escriva, wrote, "Wives, you should ask yourself whether you are not forgetting a little about your appearance. Your duty is, and will always be, to take as good care of your appearance as you did before you were married—and it is a duty of justice." Escriva similarly stated that "Women needn’t be scholars—it’s enough for them to be prudent." Anyway, if I'm reading the tea leaves correctly, no, Butker would probably not see being a stay-at-home dad as an appropriate role for a man.

The legitimate question is: are all 4 guys in fact capable of delivering 900-1000 yds? 2023 (career best) Kincaid 673 (same) Shakir 611 (same) Samuel 613 (851 in '20) Coleman rookie MVS 315 (690 in '20) It can happen - Diggs output jumped 36% in 2020; John Brown 48% in 2019; Cole Beasley 16% in 2019 then another 24% in 2020. But expecting it to happen simultaneously for 4 or 5 guys seems a bit improbable to me.

Thanks for sharing this. I like that the narrator is a college DB coach, so he's used to breaking down receiver film to ID tendencies. I also respect him that he didn't like Coleman, didn't think he was a 2nd round pick, but going through the different phases of the route concedes that Coleman ran a very good route. I wonder who it is who's making fun of Coleman?

That was at Maryland, also

I agree completely on the "going to take time". We didn't turn over most of our DL though. Starters last season were Floyd, Oliver, Jones, and Rousseau with Von Miller and Epenesa playing about 1/3 of the snaps. Point about turning over the safeties and losing the seamless communication and interchangeability of Poyer and Hyde is valid and is why I believe that it will take time. It should help that Rapp played about 40% of the snaps. And Edwards has 5 years of experience, with 30 games and 17 starts in the last two seasons, so he's not without experience.

Snark Snark

Did anyone actually post his contract details? Do we know his salary yet?