dave mcbride

Yeah, but the Rice case is SO obvious - caught on film and everything, and he’s clearly guilty as sin.

The real issue is that one is DV and the other isn't. You can be suspended for DV charges without a conviction; you can't be suspended for reckless driving/endangerment without a conviction. The league is very, very conscious that ~40 percent of their viewership is female and they have some PTSD from Kareem Hunt, Ray Rice, etc. etc. It wasn't DV.

That's the policy. It has to work it's way through the system.

Based on the timing of the Zay Jones suspension, I actually expected this to happen right around now.

I seriously doubt it's anything new. This is for the event of last year. Zay Jones was charged 4-6 weeks or so before Miller last year, IIRC, and simply got suspended 4-6 weeks earlier. Neither was convicted; charges were dropped.

Rice has to be convicted first because it wasn't DV. The NFL treats DV differently - you only have to be charged and not convicted.

I think everyone is subject to injury in the NFL, big guys and little guys. O-linemen and d-linemen get hurt all the time.

I feel like now that Hamlin got his storybook INT in primetime, we can close the book on the clinically-dead-player-miraculously-returning-become-a-starting-NFL-safety narrative. It's a great way to end that story, and he has also gained enough on-field experience these four games to be a moderately credible backup if one of the better safeties playing ahead of him goes down later in the season.

The Jets defense is absolutely for real. But they have serious, serious problems nonetheless because of the overall vibe, the badly designed offense, and Rodgers' increasing immobility. Denver blitzed the hell out of Rodgers and weren't worried about him throwing it deep -- something he doesn't really do anymore except on Offside freebies, for whatever reason (he certainly has the arm for it). I don't think he loves being hit, and he got hit hard 10 times vs. Denver.

Way too early to tell. So much of what happens in January comes down to injury situations. A healthier Bills team would have beaten KC last season, I believe. I know everyone has injuries, but one team will often have a worse injury situation than its opponent, and it's often determinative at that time of the season. If KC wasn't missing their starting two tackles in the SB vs Tampa Bay (players they lost LATE in a blowout win over the Bills in the AFC championship game), they may well have won that game.

I am usually the opposite, but ironically I'm not reading too much into the Baltimore game. It was a must win for them, the Bills were coming off a Monday night game with short-term defensive personnel issues, and the Ravens are also a lot better than their record. They're always at least pretty good and often excellent. Also ironically, the Bills have beaten them the last two times they've played them, severely limiting their offense, and they also actually put up a pretty good fight against the 14-2 Ravens in the 2019 season, holding them to 257 yards. The Ravens I'm sure had a bullseye on the Bills. This is the first time in the Josh Allen era that the Ravens have put up 300 yards on a McDermott defense (I'm not counting the 2018 opener, a game Josh actually played in but which was a Peterman-led clown show).

I absolutely believe this. It certainly seems like Rodgers has contempt for Saleh. Is the issue him feeling like he's not getting his receptions or that he's on a terrible franchise with bad qbs slinging it to him? Jimmy G, who has not had a terrible career by any stretch, was absolutely terrible last season and missed him on throws repeatedly. Maybe he just wants to win?

I think you're right about the defense as it stands NOW, but let's be optimistic for a second and presume that by late Nov/early Dec, Bernard, Johnson, Milano, Bishop and possibly even Hyde (or a healthy Edwards) are all part of the starting 11 on defense. They have good depth at corner already, and their collection of d-linemen/pass rushers is better than average. That's a good unit. Not having Bernard/Milano/Johnson and neither Bishop nor Edwards being up to speed yet (emphasis on yet) means that they're undermanned. That's not a permanent condition given the roster. Bernard was really good last year, Bishop was great in college and a touted prospect, and both Johnson and Milanos reached all-pro status in the past two years. And Edwards, while not great, is better than Rapp and Hamlin.

Yeah, Williams and Wilson are good players. I wonder how Garrett Wilson will enjoy his diminished targets if Adams comes on board, especially in year 3 of his rookie contract. I mean, Adams is a far better player than both of those guys right now, but he's definitely unaffordable.

The Ravens dominated the Bills last night, flat out, shining a massive spotlight on their personnel/schematic weaknesses. Honestly, it's better to get exposed early, learn from it, and then go about fixing things. Also, getting blown out like that is beneficial in the sense that the coaches can't explain away the problems. They need real fixing, not band-aids. Bottom line: the Ravens were better in every aspect of the game. The only TD the Bills had was the result of a freakish Allen play after everything had broken down. He was under siege all night and the Ravens D had their number. Again, bad call, but it's hardly at the level of some of the soul-crushing plays it's being compared to here.

The Bills couldn't stop them after that and then the game became garbage time for the entire fourth quarter. It was a BLOWOUT. The Bills made a few plays over the course of the game, but they were outplayed/outschemed in every aspect of the game. The Ravens weren't losing last night at home.

I think they're going to have a come to Jesus moment re: Samuel soon. That game really exposed their scheme and they need to exploit his speed far better than they've done so far. He's legit fast.

Bad call, but the Bills were never going to win that game. Don't compare the play to ones where the Bills had it in their grasp and blew it in the final seconds.

Yup. The other thing that should be factored in: the Jets (the Bills' primary divisional threat now) lost a game they had ZERO business losing. Just a mind-blowingly bad loss. The division should be tied today but it isn't because the Jets decided to Jet. I watched that game, and the Jets had 15(!) penalties called against them. Plus it's pretty clear that Nate Hackett is a bad OC.

Yup. Gase was bad.

He was a backup there because Purdy. But according to everything I’ve read, he was good there and ran the system well (and played pretty well) in his one meaningless start at the end of the season.

I always thought he had real talent but was trapped in bad organizations. He’s a good player.

That IS funny, but I'm not sure it's funnier than the prospect of cutting the starting QB only to learn that you can't field a team of 53 players on minimum-salary contracts!

"Should the Browns cut Watson after this season, his dead cap charge would total $172 million, according to Over the Cap (https://overthecap.com/player/deshaun-watson/5596). If the Browns took this on, they couldn’t roster an entire team of players—not even on minimum-salary deals." https://www.theringer.com/nfl/2024/9/26/24254717/cleveland-browns-deshaun-watson-gambit-has-failed

The year before last (2022), the Giants were 4th in rushing yards, 4th in rushing TDs, and 5th in rushing yards per attempt. They had a ton of injuries at QB last season which really hampered the run game. The point is, Barkley isn't just a little better than what they have now at RB; he's a lot better. I don't think Singletary is a bad player by any means, but the talent differential jumps off the screen when you watch the two and Singletary's fumbling probably is the reason they're 1-3 as opposed to 2-2. Barkley has a very low fumble rate.