It's not about you.

It's about the Bills response to resuming the game.

They could've resumed the game this week, and they clearly don't want to. That's fine, but you CAN' T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS.

I’m also wondering how much pressure Roger is giving to Bills and Bengals ownership behind closed doors.

Would make everything sooooo much easier if Bills just agreed to a forfeit because it would be the “best for the NFL”. Wonder if other owners get involved and give Bills/Bengals a call

This thread got weird. Not unexpected, but weird.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-dnt="true"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Doctors saw promising signs of progress overnight from Damar Hamlin, who remained hospitalized in critical condition as of Wednesday morning, according to a friend and business partner of the Buffalo Bills safety.<a href="https://t.co/yd90xXvHL1">https://t.co/yd90xXvHL1</a></p>&mdash; Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1610668951192608768?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 4, 2023</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

You have to have some sort of defined timeframe for this though, right?

It can’t just be an indefinite period of time until the Bills are ready. Is it 1 additional week? 2?

Okay, so we're back to being on the same page. The game is not being resumed this week. It was too tall a order to get entire organizational buy-in for a quick turnaround to play the football game.

Yes, if you want, you can say, "Well, the letter of law says that's a forfeit" (even though I'm not sure that's necessarily true). Or you can say, "Okay, I understand these are strange circumstances. Here's the contingency plan."

You favor the former; I favor the latter. I can see why you have your position, and I think you can see why I have mine.

I just think all of this stuff that's floating around about "the Bills response" etc etc is an echo chamber that so many of yourselves have gotten caught in. And it feels like such an overcorrection to be so upset about it.

We can be friends again, right?

Yes, and that was Tues-Thur.

That time has clearly passed.

I said earlier in the thread that if the game had been scheduled for, say, Saturday or Sunday of this weekend, that would be enough time.

Oh, and this is something that nobody is EVER going to say.

But many of us have listened to the Kelce podcast and many have also/or listened to some other podcast from current/ex jocks.

Fellas - many of these dudes barely know each other. There are 100+ players/coaches out there. 100 people isn't a large business, but if you work at one of those places, I guarantee you that many of the people in that company don't know the faces/names of every other employee.

And we've talked several times around here about how segmented locker rooms are and thus why leadership at multiple levels is so important. Mahomes is the leader of the offense, but the defense? Guys, he doesn't spend much time with the defense. He's not in the DL room. He's not running drills with those guys.

Damar Hamlin is a late round backup safety who's gotten reps this year due to injuries in the Bills secondary. Do I think a bunch of dudes in the OL room were tight with him? I do not. They spend less time with Hamlin than they do the trainer.

You know why football players/coaches usually call other players by their numbers instead of their names? That'd be why.

These guys are co-workers. Oftentimes co-workers that work completely independently of each other, especially during the season. Sure, he has friends on the team and I'm sure the secondary room is pretty shaken up. But at a point continuing to act like this guy was best buds with everyone on that team and his condition has left them all rudderless and adrift is just silly.

And man, I'm listening to some show yesterday and the idiot reporter tried to make it sound like Higgins and Hamlin had some close bond because "Higgins played at Clemons and Hamlin played at Pitt..."

FFS - this has moved into farce at this point.

Real |zach| energy in DirtMcGirt's postings here

It's pretty much a staple of modern discourse to make unfounded assumptions about the positions of people you disagree with. ROFL

As far as I know, the Bills themselves haven't said anything at all about what they want to happen. People are basically just arguing against things they read on the internet or hear on the radio. Which is, of course, a super valuable use of one's time.

I agree with that timeframe, but I can see why someone would argue to push the playoffs and have the game resumed after Week 18.

Whatever timeframe is appropriate it needs to be defined immediately and made known to the Bills. For all we know, that has already happened.

This can’t just be an indefinite period that stagnates the entire season.

Keep telling yourself that, but we all know better, we had our fair share of last minute losses and kickers failing and it didn't roll off like water. Thank God, because win you do win a Superbowl, and you probably will if Josh stays healthy, it makes it that much sweeter.

Also, you need to check yourself, folks on here were overwhelmingly in support of Damar and the Bills, it started to turn when the game wasn't going to be played by Wednesday and twitter and others said we should do the right thing and let the Bills have the #1 seed. Most of us feel you were on your way to an L on Monday and a no contest would be more than fair for the Bills. We are becoming the villian of the NFL with our success, and this will just add to that lore.

Or - and hear me out here.


He could go fist his mother.

The Bills didn't want to play the game this week. Sounds like they might not even want to play Sunday.

The message is clearly "this is bigger than football".

That's fine, but the show must go on.

If football doesn't matter right now, then there's nothing wrong with the Bills accepting a forfeit (or 2) and getting some time to get their shit together to be ready for the playoffs which they are still in.

Anything else is unnecessarily bending over backwards for a team that has clearly said that football isn't import right now.

And we are always friends!