Hairyducked Idiot

You don't wanna know how deep the hyprerfixation hole goes.

I know everyone has moved on and all, but this is what happened last time we played the Bills in the preseason and I'm so glad we don't have to see this anymore: Pre-snap there are three potential pass rushers on the right side of the offensive line against two blockers. This is a fairly common situation in the modern NFL, and it means the QB needs to do one of three things: 1) Throw a hot read, usually into the space the blitzer came from. The RB is open and looking back expecting the pass. The MLB is doing a *really* good job of closing the gap and might get there, but I think there's a decent chance with a quick throw leading the receiver away he can get the first down. 2) Make an adjustment at the line and call for your RB to stay in pass protection to pick up the blitz. This isn't usually the preferred solution because if the blitzer doesn't actually come then you've made the coverage way easier for the defense. 3) Move away from the pressure. For the love of god, move in the opposite direction as the pressure is coming from. Fields drops back, never looks at the blitzer who was screamingly obvious pre-snap, drifts half a step *toward* the pressure at the back of his drop, and gets absolutely walloped. Dear Lord baby Jesus, lyin' there in your ghost manger, just lookin' at your Baby Einstein developmental videos, learnin' 'bout shapes and colors, please let Caleb Williams be the one. Just this one time and I'll never ask you for anything ever again.

PCA. I've always been a sucker for elite defensive CFers. When I was a kid, it was Jody Davis. I was fascinated with catchers and the special equipment they got to wear. All-time, I think it's gotta be Sosa.

If things go wrong, the offensive line is the most likely culprit. But I'm gonna wait until we see some regular season games before I declare it Definitely A Problem. Training camp reports don't matter, good or bad. And I think OL, especially interior O-line, is one of the easiest weaknesses to work around if you're strong elsewhere. One big way to help would be to cut down on the assignment mistakes. It's gonna happen to every line once in awhile, but it happened *way* too regularly last year where four guys were working the same line call and a fifth guy very obviously heard it wrong. There were a lot of offenders, but Darnell Wright had more than his share, so hopefully that was just rookie stuff.

If I may derail the derail, I hate that meme so much. I spend a lot of time with trans people (if you wanna get super technical, I am one, nonbinary agender, but I don't like to make a big deal out of it).. None of them have ever once been offended by someone assuming their gender or pronouns. Gender presentation is a social signal and they have spent a lot of time and effort changing that presentation to what they want. It's more offensive to *not* assume their gender when they're very visibly presenting one, but 98% of problems come from someone willfully misgendering them after being corrected.

You follow someone around for a week filming them, you can tell any story you want about them with some editing and the right musical stings

I've sunk to the depths of degeneracy that I watched a 35 minute video about the QB3 in the fake preseason game Takeaways: 1) this guy desperate needs an editor. That was 12 minutes worth of content that he tripled in length by repeating himself over and over and over 2) I don't think Rypien is any worse than Bagent, for whatever that's worth. Or at least the Bagent we saw last year, I'm still curious to see if he's improved

That was cool. I'm not usually super into the "here's what they're like as people" stuff, but I am so beyond hyped for this team that I'll take every scrap.

I'm about halfway through. Wow they are not even a little worried about jinxing Williams.

I think that with regards to the interior OL, it's an intentional team building decision and it's not my absolute favorite but it's fine. You can't prioritize everything, you literally have to have some positions you'd rather spend less draft capital and cap space on. I think iOL could be a little higher on our priorities list (we sure do love our mid-round special teams picks) but not a lot. I'm not giving back our WR room or our secondary or even the promising parts of our DL to get better at center. Meanwhile, eberflus hints that we may not get to see Williams this week either, depending on offensive line health. That may be the smart decision but it whomps

This team dropping turds like this every few games the last few years has been such a buzzkill.

Ideally everyone learned the lesson: You don't need to tank to build through the farm system. If you need to tank to build your farm system, then your farm system will not be sustainable and you'll just have to re-tank again in a few years. Sustained success never starts with tanking.

I've seen crazier things happen in sports. It probably won't happen, but it's fun to keep an eye on the standings.

It's just become the latest fash shibboleth. They know they're lying, but being willing to repeat the lies is how they signal loyalty.

That was shockingly positive by WYTS standards

So for what it's worth, I jumped the gun and we don't even know if the boxer has swyer syndrome. All we know is that she passed years of IBA testing, failed one year for unspecified reasons, and the IBA has since been unaccredited by the IOC.

Part of the HOF festivities. It's like a pre-preseason game.

We don't even get to see the good punter? That's all the fake NFL I can handle for one night.

Roughly 30 minutes until I remember preseason sports are awful and I watch something else.

The right wing screech machine has seized on a boxer from Algeria with Swyer Syndrome, who was assigned female at birth and has female anatomy, as an example of "men being allowed to compete with women." The memes are *everywhere* today, so it must be the officlal right-wing hysteria talking point of the day. It'd be bad enough if it was regular transphobia, but this one is particularly galling because it doesn't even work with their normal transphobic worldview. I Know fascists are playing calvinball, but this one bugs me.

Bagent is the only player I really care about seeing. I think he was a fun case study last year in showing exactly what Justin Fields wasn't doing in the offense, but he wasn't actually good, even for a backup. The arm was just too erratic. But, I think he's got the raw athleticism and arm strength to have an NFL adequate arm, the erraticism came from god-awful mechanics. Which can sometimes be fixed. Heck, I stilll think there's a very small, very thin probability where his arm takes a leap forward someday and he becomes an NFL starter. It's a huge longshot, but it's worth keeping an eye on.

Letting him play out his two years and walking was also an option. People *hate* the idea of letting players walk because https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_aversion, but it's a perfectly valid play to balance against the risk of overpaying for decline years. Five years ago, Allen Robinson and Deandre Hopkins were both superestar WRs at about the same age Moore is now, and both turned out to only have one more good season left in them. I don't hate the Moore extension because we got some discount as repayment for taking on such a large risk, but it's extremely likely we'll be counting down the days until that contract gets off the books before it's over.

I can totally see all that happening as the upside, but I think there's downside risk too. I'm not 100% sold on the secondary that got torched by good QBs somewhat regularly even after the Sweat trade. I'm not sold on the DL that I'm not sure has a single good player besides Sweat. The offensive line has massive downside concerns and is paper-thin. The QB is a rookie and that's a real crapshoot in terms of immediate performance. And I think people are overlooking how easy it would be for Keenan Allen to hit the wall overnight at his age. This is one of the hardest teams to project I can remember. Our roster is built off of two big draft classes that are entering those year 2/3 make or break seasons where you find out if a guy is good or not. Being a top-10 team wouldn't shock me, but neither would being a bottom-10.

I don't have any interest in extending Allen. 32 is "Wile E Coyote running on air until he looks down" age for WR in the modern NFL. One year at a time is fine.

I'm generally skeptic of contract extensions in football. Moore's was unnecessary and not great, but I've seen worse.