Rubes

Just to clarify, not a co-author; I authored the accompanying editorial. And yes, I wouldn't go to the opener because of the risk. With the vaccine requirement, however, I may come back for a later game...

Happy birthday, young pup.

One thing I'm noticing is how folks are having a tough time ranking the Steelers. I've seen them ranked as high as #10, and as low as #21 here. They should have a good defense, but it really depends on whether that shaky offensive line can come together quickly. Hopefully not before Sunday.

Right, lots of folks would drop their full DirecTV service and go for that instead. Now why wouldn't they want to do that?

Good point, I hadn't thought of that. When the time comes, if nobody has been injured requiring short or long-term IR, then they'll have a decision to make. But it's more than likely that at least one person will need to take his place on the short-term IR list.

Yeah, it was really interesting to watch. I think part of it is that maybe Seattle thought there's no way they're really dropping two standing D-linemen into coverage, are they? And perhaps it messed up the assignments.

Still waiting to see if anyone has an answer to this...

What's interesting about the Seattle sack/fumble play linked above is that it wasn't the linebackers in the A gaps. The four rushers on the play were Klein, Edwards, Oliver, and...I think Jefferson? The two guys in the A gaps who both drop into coverage there are Jerry Hughes and Mario Addison, I believe.

Well said, my Bills brother. Couldn’t have said it any better. I’ll enjoy the ride, but please, just one before I die.

Reid Ferguson??

60,000 is probably just an early estimate, who knows what it will end up being. Chicago, Miami, and New England**** all have capacities in the 60-65,000 range.

How many more need to be cut?

Thanks. We've been discussing separately, it's a good question. I'll let you and @Figster decide if you want to post it.

As part of my job, I am occasionally asked by scientific journals to review research papers that are sent to them to check the science and make sure they meet an appropriate level of rigor to warrant publishing in the journal. If I do a good job, and the journal ultimately decides to publish the paper, they will on rare occasions ask me to write an editorial commentary to accompany the paper when it is published. Earlier this year, I was asked by a good journal to review a paper that looked at the impact of having fans at stadiums for NFL and NCAA football games in the fall of 2020 on the rates of COVID-19 in the surrounding communities, to see if in-person attendance was associated with local COVID-19 outbreaks. (Their results showed that it was not. You can read the research paper here if you want.) After I submitted my review, they asked me to write an accompanying commentary, so I was like, "Hell yeah!" When would I ever get another opportunity to write an article about science and football, two of my favorite things? And of course, if I was going to do this, you'd better damn well know that I'm going to find a way to slip in a reference to the Buffalo Bills. Damn straight I would. So of course I did. Apparently there was a group that performed an independent but unpublished study of the impact of attendance at the two Bills playoff games on COVID-19 in the Buffalo community and found no effect (one link to the story is here), so I gave a nod to the Bills by slipping in a reference to that study (despite not being able to actually see the study or know how rigorously it was done. I mean, ya gotta do what ya gotta do). So the commentary was just published last week. Here's the link to it if you have any interest. An article about science and football with a Buffalo Bills reference slipped in. One of my proudest accomplishments. LAMP! Just remember: I didn't have anything to do with the study itself, I just wrote an editorial about it. But if you have any questions about it feel free to ask. And please try not to go off the rails with the COVID stuff.

What, no one suggesting that we're now in good position to trade Tremaine for 2 1st-round picks?

If it’s going to be hot for the opener, I’d like to see us go all whites just to make Pittsburgh wear the black jerseys.

This is it for me, too. Even though I didn't know if the Allen pick would pan out the way we wanted it to, after watching his rookie year I was happy with it if only because he was so damn fun to watch play. He'd do something crazy every other play—crazy good or bad, but still crazy enough to say "wow, that was nuts." It was fun to watch, and he remains incredibly fun to watch (and much moreso now, of course). People will think I'm nuts but I also felt a similar way toward Tyrod. He was infuriating most of the time, but every few plays he'd do something wild, which was so much more entertaining to watch than someone like Orton, or EJ. He just didn't do nearly enough of it.

I think Kumerow has shown great value to the team, enough to keep him. I'd also consider that, as one of the top pass-happy teams in the league, it would be wise to keep more WR than usual in case guys go down—as was the case last year.

He is in the top 10, we just have to wait to find out where exactly.

I thought I heard it was only a penalty if it occurs within the space between the ends of the offensive line (eg, between a 2 TE set)? I could be making that up.

Expectations? I expect we'll all come to realize just how important Star is to the defensive front. Plus, we'll be playing a lot more unproven QBs this year than last year, so I do expect an improvement overall just from that.

I wish more people could understand this.