Your Thursday Night NFL Football Open Thread

It’s the opening offering of week 8! Can you believe it’s week 8 already? (lousy running joke is lousy) The trade deadline is coming on Tuesday and there’s plenty of scuttlebutt. Let’s take a look.

Tidbits:

-Mill of Rumor: The Ravens are reportedly mad about King Henry because Bus Edwards, Hill and Gordon aren’t cutting it. The run game looks good but that’s because Lamar! is responsible for 35% of it which is too damn high! One problem is that the Ravens don’t have enough cap room so they’ll have to send some player back to make it work.

-Vrabel has indicated that he’ll play both Willis and Leavis this week. Dude must be secure in his job because that reeks of desperation. It always works, that’s why it’s used so often!

-There are no teams on bye this week because the NFL sked makers are clowns.

-Get ‘Em While They’re Hot!-Or underperforming, or without a contract, or unhappy, or don’t fit the scheme, or need a change of scenery or have lived out their usefulness. Those on that list include Hunter Renfrow, Jerry Jeudy, Mike Evans, Austin Ekeler, Zack Moss, Chase Young and a few others.

To The Game!

Bucs/Bills:

-Does this not strike you as a weird game? When I saw it I was a bit taken aback. I had no reference for these teams together. And you know what, Tampa has been around since ’76 but this is only the third time they’ve wandered over Buffalo way.

-Both teams come into the game with records that are a bit surprising-Buffalo has lost 2 of 3 and struggled against the Giants and the Bucs just seem like a 1-5 team. Maybe that’s because I don’t follow them too closely.

-Progress!: After being very last in the league in 2022 in rushing yards per game the Tampa brain trust sat down, went over all the analytics, took a good hard look at the offense and vowed to make changes. And you know what? It worked-they’re 29th so far this year.

-You may want to sit James Cook-the Bucs stop the run to the tune of allowing only 95.8 ypg.

-The Bills just might open up the offense tonight because they have no choice. You see, they’ve been playing 12 personnel (2 tight end looks) most of the season but tonight they have only Dalton Kincaid at that position. Let those balls fly!

As far as your balls? Fondle ’em if you got ’em.