Thurman#1

Whiffing on the QB will kill a GM's career whether it's at #1 or #4. Whiffing on an RB, not so much. That's how to establish the priority.

That's not the reason we will take a QB in the first, assuming we do, as is very likely. That only comes into play in roughly picks 28 - 40. Yeah, there's some reason for teams to trade up there if they're really confident he's their guy. But if the Bils trade up for Rudolph, it won't be because they're worried about the 5th year, IMO, it'll be because they're worried about him being gone later in the draft.

I really liked Flutie in his first year here. After that his arm seemed to go and he couldn't throw the deep outs anymore and teams were able to strangle him by not covering the routes he could no longer throw. It wasn't Flutie who won those games. It was the Buffalo Bills. That's how it always is. Wins are a team stat. And part of winning is also who you beat. The teams we beat with Flutie starting were not exactly a murderer's row. 1999 (Bills had the16th best scoring offense, 2nd best defensive scoring allowed) Indy 13-3 (loss) Jets 8-8 (win, loss) Philly 5-11 (win) Miami 9-7 (win, win) Pitt 6-10 (win) Oak 8-8 (loss) Seattle 9-7 (loss) Balt 8-8 (win) Wash 10-6 (win) New Eng 8-8 (win, win) NYG 7-9 (loss) Ariz 6-10 (win) 2000 (Bills had the 20th best scoring offense, 18th best defensive scoring allowed. That was a terrific defense.) Minny 11-5 (loss) Jets 9-7 (win) Patriots 5-11 (win) Bears 5-11 (win) Seattle 6-10 (win) Not that Johnson was a great QB either. But he was a bit better than Flutie after the Dougster's arm went downhill.

Well, of course the player may need to learn the game fully by making and learning from rookie mistakes. Just not necessarily in their rookie year. Did Tom Brady need to make his rookie mistakes in his rookie year in order to learn the game fully? Drew Brees? Aaron Rodgers? All three, the best in the game took their rookie years off. Some guys don't necessarily need a year off. Some teams might need their young guy to play. But it wouldn't hurt anyone to take a year off. Next year's version of FAs like Peyton Manning or Cousins are entirely imaginary. They don't exist in reality. They'll be guys like Foles and Brissett, Cutler if he hasn't retired, Yates, Osweiler, EJ Manuel. Bryce Petty, maybe. Siemian. Hundley. If you're really lucky and the Ravens draft someone early this year and he pays off, maybe Flacco might be available. Those are next year's versions of Peyton Manning or Cousins. Guys like those two come around very very occasionally. It's not a mistake you had to go back six years to find your second example, Manning.

Till 2020. Depends who it is, but this is a young regime filled with guys who are capable of tuning out fan mob reaction, which is a good thing. They'll manage expectations as well as they can and they'll deal with negativity. Sure, some fans will panic. Most Bills fans are reasonable people and they know this year doesn't look like a good one anyway. McCarron's a guy who will make things interesting and give us reasonable chances to win, IMO.

The year before they went 16-0. With Cassel 11-5 against a really really easy schedule. They're not dead in the water without his royal highness but they're not the same team. But yeah, with Garoppolo they might not have missed too too much. It was great to see the back of him.

Solder's injury history? His injury history is that he's played 15 or 16 games a year in all but one of his seven seasons. The reason he got that contract is simple. He's an excellent left tackle, one of the top five or so in the league. He's not overpaid. And if you bring in a rookie, it will take time to get him up to speed, hopefully a lot of time, but LT is a very tough position to really get the technicalities of. They don't have the cap space to keep Solder? True. But that's a result of other decisions and other priorities. They prioritized other things than keeping their QB healthy. And more to the point, as I said it's beside the point whether or not he is overpaid. The question is whether he'll be missed. He will. Salary has nothing to do with that. The Pats will regress at LT, and likely - and hopefully - that means Brady will be beaten more consistently, and often when he doesn't expect it. Scarnecchia is very good, as I said, so if you're lucky you won't miss him too too much. But yeah, you'll miss him. Agreed that the Butler decision was strange. Weird things going on your way.

Can't remember who, but it was someone who had sources. But this close to the draft, sometimes the sources are smoke-screening or adrenaline- and confirmation-bias-blinded. Rosen could fall but it is nowhere as sure as people here seem to think.

Sure. But the odds are probably a good deal better than even that at #6, you can no longer get Mayfield or Rosen. Heh heh.

Agreed. People must be bored of people saying this, but who are the best QBs in the game? Brees, Rodgers and Brady? They all spent a year on the bench, or more. As did Carson Palmer, Philip Rivers and Kirk Cousins. It ain't a bad thing. It doesn't guarantee anything either, of course, but it does give guys time to ingrain good mechanical habits if they need upgrades and to figure out how to study film and how to start to read defences.

Yeah, if #2 and #5 prove unwilling to trade, it could be unthrilling for us. I don't see us picking Jackson in that case, but what do I know?

Yup, we heard last year that it looked like a high pick, and it did. It was completely impossible to see how very easy our schedule would be, not to mention that even the good teams we played would be right in the middle of streaks of horrible play. We did indeed get very lucky last year. And it could happen again. The law of averages says it's pretty unlikely, though. And even our coaches have put out warning signals about how we might have problems next year. I'd certainly love to be picking #32. I hope you're right. Wouldn't bet my rent on it, though. Or even $10.

This has been said, correctly, approximately seven million times. Winning is not a QB thing. It's a team thing, every time. What a QB can do is play QB extremely well. With a crappy team around him that won't be enough. Rivers is terrific. His team has been terrible. He is absolutely a franchise QB, a top ten guy. On the Steelers he might have won more titles than Roethlisberger. What a franchise guy does is give your team a chance every year. A chance. But if your GM and coach consistently put a bad team around him, that chance will go for naught. And no, Hotrod doesn't make the playoffs more than that. The Buffalo Bills made the playoffs one of three years with Hotrod at QB. The Buffalo Bills did. And the Ravens won a Super Bowl with him. Wasn't really him, or Flacco, that gets the credit, though. It's the Ravens. The QB is the foundation without which it's extremely unlikely to win a title. But not the only thing necessary to win a title.

Nice post and good point. I go back and forth between three and four, but not all of the big four. I have a good feeling (guess) about Mayfield. Rosen if he stays healthy, but that's a big if. It's all guesswork but yours is thoughtful and smart.

What is non-process about Rosen? The process is simply about getting better every day and trusting to the process of improvement rather than the result. Nothing about Rosen would conflict with that.

Yup, I agree that it might be a high pick next year. But I'd include it in a second if it gets us a QB they're convince has a great shot at being a top 10 - 12 guy. If the Giants pick Chubb or Barkley and we want any of the top three or four QBs, then yeah, five would still be great for us. But if the Giants trade out, it will be with someone who wants to draft a QB. Possibly us, but if it's someone else, they'll almost certainly want a QB. And you can't count on anyone falling to #12. Arizona could trade up. Even the Pats. Several teams might.

Did he say he had a source, or was it an educated guess? Because it's as reasonable as anything else, but if they are going that way, it's likely because the Giants are asking an absolutely huge bounty.

Me personally, I'd cut none of them. I might be looking for a replacement for Bortles any time I get a great shot at someone with a good chance. IMHO Mariota's going to make it, Winston and Bortles are still question marks, though honestly I haven't looked at Winston enough probably to have an educated opinion. But if inside the building I see they are absolutely committed and putting in the work to improve, I'd keep all three, though they'd be on shortish leashes if they plateau.

Two? He'd have to be a disaster of JaMarcus-like proportions. Three to five. But basically, every guy is different, so every situation is different. Generally three to four.

What you based it on don't matter, dude. What you did matters. And what you did was to make an extremely shaky comparison. From 1990 to 2016, in the second round 29 QBs were picked. Two became real franchise guys. Around 7%. From 1990 to 2016, in the third round, 31 QBs were picked. One became a real franchise guy. Around 3%. Maximizing your chances in the only move that makes sense.

Foles isn't a quibble. He's no franchise QB. Not even close. Dalton may be a franchise guy but he's no top ten or twelve guy at least so far, and that's what you need, a consistent top ten or twelve guy to give yourself a consistent shot at titles. And your way of fighting recency bias is to look only at the last six years? That does not fully address the problem. This is what you get when you look at 2011 - 2016. 2011 - 2016 Pick 1 - 10 Goff, Wentz, Jameis Winston, Mariota, Bortles. Luck, Griffin III, Tannehill, Newton, Locker, Gabbert (with Winston, Mariota, Bortles and maybe Tannehill still having a shot) 2011 - 2016 Pick 11 - 32: Paxton Lynch, Manziel, Bridgewater, Manuel, Weeden, Ponder (Bridgewater still has a shot, and maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe Lynch) 2011 - 2016 2nd rounders: Hackenberg, Carr, Garoppolo, Geno Smith, Osweiler, Dalton, Kaepernick (Garroppolo and Carr have really great chances. Very likely. Dalton, too, maybe) 2011 - 2016 3rd rounders: Brissett, Kessler, Grayson, Mannion, Glennon, Wilson, Foles, Mallett What does this tell you? It tells you all but nothing, because it's way too small a sample, with many of these guys early enough in their careers that we don't know for sure yet). You need to have many more years to look at. The only real trend is that out of five rock solid top QBs, four of them were picked in the top ten. Get yourself a larger sample, though, and what you find changes radically ..... 1990 - 2016 Pick 1 - 10 Goff, Wentz, Jameis Winston, Mariota, Bortles. Luck, Griffin III, Tannehill, Newton, Locker, Gabbert, Bradford, Stafford, Sanchez, Matt Ryan, JaMarcus Russell, Vince Young, Matt Leinart, Alex Smith, Eli Manning, Philip Rivers, Carson Palmer, Byron Leftwich, David Carr, Joey Harrington, Mike Vick, Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, Akili Smith, Peyton Manning, Ryan Leaf, Steve McNair, Kerry Collins, Heath Shuler, Trent Dilfer, Drew Bledsoe, Rick Mirer, David Klingler, Jeff George, Andre Ware ........................... (with Winston, Mariota, Bortles and maybe Tannehill still having a shot) 1990 - 2016 Pick 11 - 32: Paxton Lynch, Manziel, Bridgewater, Manuel, Weeden, Ponder, Tebow, Freeman, Joe Flacco, Brady Quinn, Jay Cutler, Aaron Rodgers, Jason Campbell, Roethlisberger, Losman, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman, Patrick Ramsey, Chad Pennington before the shoulder injuries, Giovanni Carmazzi, Daunte Culpepper, Cade McNown, Jim Druckenmiller, Tommy Maddox, Dan McGwire, Todd Marinovich .......................(Bridgewater still has a shot, and maaaaaaaaaaaaaybe Lynch. IMO Flacco was a franchise guy but not a rock solid long-term franchise guy and Culpepper might've made it without the injuries but doesn't) 1990 - 2016 2nd rounders: Hackenberg, Carr, Garoppolo, Geno Smith, Osweiler, Dalton, Kaepernick, Clausen, Pat White, Brohm, Henne, Kevin Kolb, John Beck, Drew Stanton, Kellen Clemens, Tarvaris Jackson, Drew Brees, Quincy Carter, Marques Tuiasosopo, Shaun King, Charlie Batch, Jake Plummer, Tony Banks, Todd Collins, Kordell Stewart, Matt Blundin, Tony Sacca, Brett Favre, Browning Nagle ............................. (Garroppolo and Carr have really great chances. Very likely. Dalton, too, maybe) 1990 - 2016 3rd rounders: Brissett, Kessler, Grayson, Mannion, Glennon, Wilson, Foles, Mallett, Colt McCoy, Kevin O'Connell, Trent Edwards, Charlie Whitehurst, Brodie Croyle, Charlie Frye, Andrew Walter, David Greene, Matt Schaub, Dave Ragone, Chris Simms, Josh McCown, Chris Redman, Brock Huard, Jonathan Quinn, Brian Griese, Bobby Hoying, Stoney Case, Eric Zeier, Billy Joe Hobert, Tom Hodson, Peter Tom Willis, Neil O'Donnell There are some reasonable disagreements to be made with who I counted as undoubted franchise successes. But the overall trend is inarguable. And while I didn't go any further back, I'd bet the trend would be much the same further back.

Yup. Especially when you're going to have to marry her rather than just date her for a week or so. It's a brilliant move.

Solder may have been overpaid by Pats standards with his new contract, but that's beside the point of whether they'll miss him. They will. He's done a terrific job for a long time for them at a premium position. My guess is that Scarnecchia coaches someone up but they suffer a definite regression at tackle.

I doubt it's completely smoke, but they didn't move up hoping to get Mayfield and nobody else. He's an edgy guy and would probably fit NYC in terms of temperament, which is important there. You can't be oversensitive in the Big Apple. Pure guesswork, but I think he's their second choice, after Darnold.

He was a rookie. And while I'm sure there's a lot of group-think in the media and everywhere, guys like Mayock and the other tape monsters were just as high on him as the folks who are more going on highlights and rumors. As for his college film being filled with inaccuracy, I'm not seeing it. Watched the 2016 Clemson and Miami games and saw two or three really bad decisions (all against Miami), and three or four throws that seemed to take forever to get there, causing problems, but overall good accuracy despite the Miami defense consistently pressuring him and making his windows small as well on many or most plays. Not saying I expect him to ever be a starter, but I wouldn't rule it out either. I respect your work on QBs, Gunner, and I only watched the two games, but while I did see the floating, he looked accurate to me. I'll bow out for a while but will come back to read.