colin

positionally we need S, maybe LB, K, and DL more than anything. carter having a bum wrist and von coming back soon makes DT a greater priority than DE. but, what we actually need is a play maker/difference maker. i'd put buddah baker juuuuuuuuuuust below the top level of that for his position, which is a need, but garrett or crosby or simmons (if he's healthy) would make the bigger imact. garrett can fit under the cap easy for one season, after that all kinds of stuff is needed but we can move money around and the diggs, miller, knox, and milano contracts are gone after next year. an extension for josh is possible too. crosby is a bit younger, and imo a slightly better pure pass rusher, but garrett would also bring an insane physical presence that would super charge the D. i'd do 2 firsts for him in a heartbeat. if we can get him and cooper under contract after this year, it means we gave up 2 firsts, and a 3rd to swap diggs and miller for cooper and garrett. that's an absolute no brainer super move. we have a legit oline (bad at picking up blitzes games and simulated pressure, but that can be coached) i'd say top 5 or 10. garrett would but our dline over the top, making it a top 3 or 4 unit. football is about the big uglies, and getting mashed around by baltimore made me sick. w the ability to beat their corners outside and physical ability necessary to play a team like that with a light box, the rematch in the playoffs would look really really different.

As a player the knock on him is the drops, and that's it. I think he's a guy who takes his profession of football very seriously, but he doesn't sit around thinking about celebrations or endorsement deals. He's a chess nerd, so he prolly loves that aspect of nfl football, and looks at scheme and film as a way to make the winning move, but he doesn't see his worth as a human being as being a big star or a leader of men. people talk a lot about players as if they all are or all can be leaders. coop is an example of someone who is simply not a leader. he doesn't want to be and the bills have plenty of leaders on the team, with a youngish roster and allen and dawkings being the clear top two personalities. we don't need a diggs or another fired up guy as much as we need excellent football players.

amari cooper is a bit unique in that he has elite traits and skills at wr, has always been elite (top 10 pick), but just does his job. he reminds me of a lot of the players that the pats had during their run. todd collins, vrable, graham and watson at te, ty law, welker and amendola and edlemen, etc. they all had some elite ability, altho they were more scheme fit and did have holes, but they just did their jobs. they were reliable, worked exactly to the specifications of the scheme, and won 1 on 1 match ups or just put themselves in the right spot so that applying the correct technique got them the best results. he does a lot for the O just being someone that makes D's not want to be in cover 0/1/3, but he does it by winning his rep rather than drawing attention or "taking over a game" or whatever. getting open early is something only bease ever did for the bills, and bease destroyed zone coverage but had issues vs man because he just wasn't fast or big. cooper does that but with the skills to win quickly on the outside vs press coverage. i think eric moulds was the last guy who did that for us. i think for these reasons coop is way better for us than hopkins, who is basically an older version of what we really hope coleman can become.

If Milano is 100% and g2g then he's the starting outside linebacker. I could see some 3 lb sets at that point tho vs heavy formations. The real question is will Milano be healthy? He's played what, 3 games since our playoff loss to Cincinnati? I think they'd have to put him on a snap count for the final 4-5 games of the season for him to be confirmed totally ready for the playoffs. It's possible Williams keeps improving and is the clear choice by then vs a healthy Milano but MCD would need to see overwhelming evidence to choose Williams.

I've heard stories of young pitchers getting optional Tommy John surgery to make their throwing arm stronger

yea, i think i coulda been more clear -- im saying players don't only use to recover, and never use anything else. i think most players use peds most of the time.

im not the biggest scout/draft guy, but i remember when this pick was made, i was wondering what makes this guy good enough to take this high, and after we added AJ, oliver, and groot. i was hoping the front office had secret knowledge, but my goodness this guy sucked out loud from day one.

i hope so. people talk about the bust rate at qb in the first round, but if you look at the top qbs, they are so overwhelmingly guys who were picked super high (brady and brock being exceptions, obv). what is interesting to me is how many WRs come out at different points and are just monsters. Jefferson was a high pick and a silly good college player, but he was what, the 4th or 5th guy taken that year? diggs, adams, ayuik, our own coleman and many others fell past the first round. It seems like there are mental and less measured traits that lead to top flight wr play.

I didn't even think of script drug exceptions. Stims, beta blockers, etc. that stuff is used in top colleges and gets kids to move up a quartile, im sure it helps guys in what might be the most high pressure business in america. I had an extensive discussion w my Derm about BPC 157, TB500, and hormone therapy while getting an irregular mole removed. His stance was that the industry of using and prescribing this stuff has essentially matured from gray market and unmonitored to main stream, and is caught in between the world of regular way meds and luxo clinics for the rich, which is exactly what he saw with plastic surgery (he's been doing it for a long long time). He said when he was new to medicine cosmetic dentistry sort of occupied this space, and now I don't think you can find a dentist who won't offer services to whiten your smile and other purely cosmetic treatments. the nfl exists in the same america as all of the above, so you'd have to buy sand in bulk to stick your head in if you don't see the reality of performance enhancement usage in a sport where an extra few percent of performance can mean the difference from never being in the NFL to making 8 figures. also, im curious what you mean about except the highlighted? to be clear, i don't think that people won't use drugs to recover from injury, but they are not likely to never use drugs except to recover from injury. like, if you are an actual freak and can be an nfl player totally clean, i don't see that person just starting to use and stopping because of an injury.

imo the use of ped's is normal and too be expected in nfl football. getting caught is the issue. and it's in other sports too -- tyson gay got popped along w a lot of other track guys, after his suspension he was still running at the top level in the world. didn't von miller get popped for peds years ago? still came back to a HOF career. and brian cushing, who went from hero to zero back to hero from HS senior, training camp at usc, and then 2nd year at usc, got popped his rookie year, and was huge powerful and jacked when he came back and stayed that way. spare me comments about "coming back from injury", it doesn't work that way and no one actually does that. the ped testing in the nfl and a lot of other sports are a tax on the dumb. in other sports they can also be a tax on the poor, but that doesn't count in the nfl.

brady is better at how the offense is executed consistently (so far) vs daboll, mainly because of the run game and getting production out of backs and tes. daboll was better at just calling plays. he'd drive me insane with his like random set of seemingly unrelated formations and plays, but they were effective and lead to a lot of scoring and efficiency. talent differences matter tho, if anything you have to say daboll was better so far than brady, because his teams produced some crazy offensive numbers in the playoffs. if brady can figure out the first half of games, and get us 2 or more playoff wins, then at that point you give him the edge of daboll.

coleman isn't up to where we need him to be yet. some of his routes have been kinda awful, and he's not a polished blocker yet. he also, as advertised, does not get much seperation. the special thing about him to me is what he does with the ball in his hands. he does have good hands too, but when he has the ball his balance and coordination lets him make small moves that lead to big gains. he did it vs tenn and vs baltimore. turning short catches into big gains breaks the D's back. if he gets his routes better and builds more rapport with josh on the scrambles he could crack 1k this season.

with those contract numbers, if garrett is actually available, i'd just pay what it cost. a couple of firsts, maybe a couple of 2nds. if we have him for 3 years (including this one) for basically minimum, we can move stuff around to keep cooper if we want. its early to say, but coleman does things with the ball in his hands that we have simply not gotten out of players. him along w coop and shakir and the backs and tight ends gives us a mix of talent on O that legit exceeds anything we have had with allen on the team. 2020/2021 was nice w brown and beaz and diggs, but the oline was much worse than it is now, and our backs and tes were not a threat in anyway. a super star dline is what mcd needs more than anything. we've all talked about how he can make a secondary better than it really is, and it seems like we've been able to do that at LB as well. our corners are actually a really good trio. i'll say it again, garrett, miller, groot and oliver is not getting blocked at all on 3rd and long, we'd be able to get mahomes in the playoffs off of his super efficient streak vs our d, and lamar would have 3+ turnovers. burrow would likely get hurt. those are the 3 teams we have to beat to get to a super bowl, and it's hard to think of one additional player to add to the team that would get us there more than garrett.

Baltimore's O is sick, but that d kinda sucks. Only Brady doing his best Hackett (bills era Hackett) impression has made them look good this season

our d got trucked badly vs baltimore, but bmore has pure cheeks pass d. not being able to get a single thing on passing the ball really shows our corches were out to lunch in a sad and big way that game. yes, we didn't have cooper etc etc, but we can't just get pantsed every time an opposing coach changes a single thing.

2 firsts and elam or whatever and maybe lower value picks too if the contract can be structured in a way that works w the cap (basically we can pay chunks of what is getting burned on samuel, knox, milano, miller, diggs and other dead cap as it comes off). that guy would make this d line go from really good at times and zilch at other times to really good almost all the time and disgusting nasty some of the time. garret, oliver, miller and groot is a shocking nascar package on 3rd and long. no oline in the nfl would block that effectively and the intimidation factor would be off the charts. also, it means w aj, miller, groot and garret, you'd never be without one edge matchup that you can win as you rotate. if anything makes mcd's d work it's a sick four man rush, and that would be about the best in the nfl.

given how nasty baltimore and kc are, and how we've managed to lose two consecutive years at home in the playoffs, i think home field advantage is a like 8% or lower probability thing now and not as crucial as we all thought it was after the 13 seconds game, so winning the division is kinda close as makes no difference to the best likely outcome of the regular season (obv being healthy is so HUGE). also, kc won two on the road last season to win the chip, no excuses we just have to ball in the post season. because of that, while i will panic and black pill in the game day thread, if we just keep our division lead we are kinda in the best place we can likely be this year. we play NE twice in 3 weeks near the end of the season, as long as they don't figure it out late and pose a challenge, we are prolly gonna be in about where we can be for the remainder.

davis hit the hole way harder and with less delay. cook sets stuff up w better vision and moves better and is faster, but smaller. this o would do much better if brady figured out the rhythm of the running game a bit better. way too many of our plays get swallowed up or blown up in the back field because of delaying stuff that the D is looking for. imo that delayed stuff works better when the quick hitters have been working. those delayed runs by cook and allen in the redzone were disgusting. the smash stuff was dominating. the runs vs the jets, especially early, were killing it. it seems like brady is playing madden at times just dialing up plays and seeing what might work.

the clowns who sell constant nfl coverage have to give narratives and the guys with the most endorsements and highest profile get the most attention. allen and mahomes are two of the faces of the entire league, so they sell it that way. it's plainly obvious that coaching and the roster and the entire team is what matters but that's not what drives clicks and views and sales of crap they sell. because of this, i just don't consume nfl or sports media any more really. i'll check out podcasts and stuff w analysis and numbers, but holy crap hearing morons talk about allen's turnovers or how mahomes finds a way to win or whatever is just stupefying.

whatever it is on the coaches side, it is clearly impacting the players too. josh was wound up tight to start, the backs (cook really) was slow to get going out of the hole, cooper dropped a 3rd down conversion (first JA pass ever, so maybe that's not really an issue). on d, it generally looks like the d line not getting anything going (i presume it's because of blocking scheme vs our rush, because they are all fresh) and our lbs and dbs just tend to bite on underneath stuff. the big pass to nico vs houston and the run by henry vs baltimore are great examples. one was early and bishop blew his assignment and it was just so easy for their o, and w the henry run, they had a perfect play called and we lined up like suckers and let it go for nearly 90 and 6! i think the solution involves getting the players better prepared -- they are thinking too much and it causes hesitation to start, and i think there needs to be a little more creativity on both sides of the ball. instead of disguising or whatever all the time on D, maybe show some different alignments, and on o i think we need a script with some creative audibles (other teams always seem to have them). one extra stop early and maybe one extra good drive on o would make these games a lot less stressful, and would have us at 6-1 with our loss vs baltimore prolly looking less disgusting.

They stank to start but then woke up. Best thing to see was the d adjustment. Seems like they had a will Levis game plan to start, and then switched to a nuke the Rudolph plan in the second.

Glass cannons

Lol, they are trying to give the cover and the over some action

That was close but no catch, but how about the db with a full hand of cloth? Are these blind men ever gonna call those in the end zone?

Like, what are they thinking? The D will drop back deep and allow Allen a lane? It's at the flipping 3