Thurman#1

No, your point very much does not stand. Many to most thought Kaaya, for instance, was going to be really good. One of these mocks from last year had Kaaya going #1. I personally like this quote, "When Kaaya turns pro, he will likely be labeled NFL-ready because of his throwing mechanics, footwork, ability go through his progressions and accuracy. These traits will help him make a smooth transition." Watson was widely known and highly thought of before the season. Baker Mayfield, who went into the season having completed 68.1% of his throws and put together 36 TDs and 7 INTs was mentioned a lot, though his height was also mentioned a lot. Two or three had Kaaya and Watson as #1 and #2 and four guys in the first round. One had Watson and Kelly as #1 and #2. http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/news/top-prospects-for-the-2017-nfl-draft-deshaun-watson-myles-garrett-headline-junior-laden-class/14fyrtraxq59y1nnwbanilvpk2 http://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/the-top-10-qbs-well-be-talking-about-before-the-2017-nfl-draft/ https://www.si.com/nfl/2016/05/02/nfl-mock-draft-2017-top-prospects http://www.sportingnews.com/ncaa-football/list/nfl-draft-2017-top-underclassmen-leonard-fournette-brad-kaaya-myles-garrett-deshaun-watson-jt-barrett/nvljj0xdh43x1jd5okzb80msp/slide/9 https://www.profootballfocus.com/draft-deshaun-watson-goes-no-1-to-browns-in-pffs-early-2017-mock-draft/ http://www.dawgsbynature.com/2016/5/2/11565182/2017-mock-draft-cleveland-browns-take-qb-deshaun-watson-at-no-1 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2636907-2017-nfl-mock-draft-predictions-for-next-years-top-prospects http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/news/super-early-2017-nfl-draft-qbs-go-1-2-for-third-consecutive-year/ http://www.chatsports.com/nfl/a/forget-2016-here-are-top-15-prospects-2017-nfl-draft-25839 Lots of Watson as #1 overall pick sentiment. Here's one titled, "Should teams wait until 2017 to draft a QB?" "With that in mind, should teams bypass taking a quarterback this year and wait until next year? Let’s take a look at next years projected quarterback class: Deshaun Watson, Brad Kaaya, Baker Mayfield, JT Barrett, Malik Zaire, Josh Dobbs, and Seth Russell. In that list, you have Heisman candidates, college playoff quarterbacks, and guys who’s talent is substantially higher than this years class." http://nflmocks.com/2016/02/12/nfl-draft-should-teams-wait-until-2017-to-draft-a-qb/

Just want to point out that Brady was not drafted with a throw-away pick. Just the opposite, actually, he was drafted with a supplemental pick. And the Pats have consistently done their best to amass supplemental picks and extra picks of any kind in any way they can. And while the kind of trade you're talking about is something New England has done, it's certainly not the only kind of trade they've worked. They consistently trade for extra picks even in they pick they get isn't a round higher.

Yes. The year before, they did, each time. They always say next year's QBs are going to be good. They don't always say "better," in years when there's an Andrew Luck coming out for example, but they say "good" every year. Those guys haven't gone under the draft microscope yet.

The problem with that Bills team wasn't that it was an all-choir boys team, it's that it was an all choir boy team that wasn't talented. There have been plenty of choir boy teams that were terrific. Bill Walsh built high-character teams and did OK.

It's anything but imaginary, it has specific meaning about the likelihood of a guy being available at various points in the draft. But yeah, it loses it's value the instant the guy is on a specific team. After that it's all success or failure and where he falls on that scale. Arm and movement are fine, but they're not the key. Decision-making speed and correctness is the key if there is a single key, and there's a reason Cardale lasted to the 4th and Trubisky and those other three will probably go in the top two. From what we've seen, Cardale would still probably be picked in the 4th if he were drafted today.

It's an 80 yard play, but so is a screen pass that the receiver takes for 82 yards after catching it at the 18. That E.J. pass goes from the 14 to the 35. It's a 50 to 51 yard pass.

No, being developmental doesn't "just mean they're probably not going to work out." There have been plenty of developmental QBs over the years who have, and some who proved they didn't actually need development after all. It means more than that, specifically and logistically. But the rest of your post is on target. If you have to pick guys from the middle rounds, you need to pick often.

Doubles your chances of finding one who becomes a franchise QB. It's not like snaps are the only way to develop as a QB. You're attending meetings, you're doing mental reps, you're learning the offense and how to diagnose defenses and you're practicing your fundamentals and mechanics.

Honestly, no, Meanie, it's not. And I'm not talking about paper-based subscriptions. You can subscribe on-line. Until you do, you only get 10 articles per month. They like people to read their stuff, and like it. It makes it more likely that they will subscribe. Which is their model for making money. I saw an interview with Graham a couple of years back. He said that when they were still clicks-based and he was writing the Bills blog he was checking his clicks constantly, multiple times a day and often an hour. Then they converted to subscription and he said that just totally stopped. Said he hadn't checked his clicks in six months. n't because they don't care about if people read it or not. I absolutely love that about the Pegulas, that they kept the Bills here. We will always owe them for that. But that can save them for criticism for only so long, and that time has passed. IMHO wanting to win isn't enough for an owner, he should do the things that make it more likely. He should've hired a football czar the first year, for instance. That would probably have prevented the Rex Ryan hiring. I don't always agree with Jerry either, though maybe 70 - 80%. Much lower with Bucky, and I find him irritating often. But both make me think and challenge me, and I like that. I can see how many would dislike them, though.

Sorry, man, you're right, it was BBB that said that. I apologize for the mistake in identity. I should be more careful. However, as for getting that most posts here are opinions, maybe the guy who wrote this: ... ought to consider the same thing. It's not clear at all, except perhaps to you. Again, Sully has written good and bad things about Pegula. Has he been more negative than positive? Maybe. But IMHO that's pretty reasonable when you look at the records of the Sabres and Bills since Terry bought them.

I just listened to a podcast with Tim Graham and all he talked about was clicks the whole time. You don't know what you're talking about. Clicks is still a factor in large parts of the industry. But not most newspapers and not the News. They're based on subscriptions. If the News cared if you clicked, they sure wouldn't stop people from accessing more than 10 stories a month online. They still need to write stuff people are interested in, obviously, but they make their money these days from subscriptions. EDIT: Thanks for pointing out the Graham podcast. It was interesting. They seemed to me to be talking about the whole industry, but also at the News the need to write stuff people are interested in. Their discussion of the Kiko Alonso - McCoy battle was really worth listening to.

By now, you've proved my point. You said "Sully's article is totally refuted by Vic's," and I twice asked you to show the quotations where it happened and you've twice been unable to do so. Exactly. And while the thing about the Pegulas may be clear to you it's at best unprovable, basically your opinion. Again, Jerry has said good things and bad things about the Pegulas, mostly depending on what they're doing at the time. Which is what a journalist should be doing. The journalistic reason to say that it would be nice for Terry to show up is that it's a reasonable opinion. It's that simple. A reasonable opinion with which reasonable people could disagree, but a reasonable opinion. Don't like Jerry? Fair enough. Don't like the article? Again, fair enough. But that's what your objections come down to, that you don't like it, but you're trying to say there's something wrong with it and unsurprisingly not being able to show what. Again, clicks don't matter to the News. That's not their profit model anymore, they're based on subscriptions. But as for the rest, exactly. If you don't like it, don't read it. If you don't like a thread, click to another. I don't know why people don't get this.

You said "Sully's article is totally refuted by Vic's." I asked for you to give both of the quotes, Sully's and the one by Vic that totally refutes it. If you're not misreporting, it should have been easy to do so. And yet you didn't. So, let me ask again, if you're not misreporting this total refutation you mentioned, what are the specific quotes? The News doesn't care if you click. Most newspapers and certainly the News are no longer making money by trying to get clicks. If they were, they wouldn't limit people to ten articles per month. They make their money by people enjoying their stuff and subscribing. There are plenty of sites on the net that work by a clickbait model. The News simply isn't one of them. OldManFan, you might want to address the formatting of that post to make clear what words are yours and what are mine. And I've been on this site longer than I was on the BBMB. They most likely understand me as well as they care to and probably better than you appear to. I'm not pro-reporter, I'm pro good journalism. There's plenty of crappy reporting out there. There's also plenty of good reporting, and the News is generally quite good. As for consistency, it makes sense sometimes and not others. When new info comes in, sometimes it makes sense to change your opinion. Emerson said it best. And while it makes total sense to disagree with plenty of these guys opinions, Sully doesn't give a damn that Pegula said something bad about him years ago. Sully has said good and bad things about Pegula depending on what he's doing. Whatever else you wanna say about Sully, he's not real sensitive. He clearly doesn't care if he's insulted.

No it didn't. What got us to the top 3rd of the league in scoring is how well the whole team played. Scoring is NOT a QB stat. It is a whole offense stat, with actually a large measure of defensive and STs play, probably 20 - 30%. Our offense had top ten average drive start field position. And we also were in the top ten of the league in terms of scoring by the defense/STs. And as for the part of scoring that is purely offensive, our pass game sucked and our run game was terrific. Our run game led the league in TDs and was 25% higher than the next best team, whereas our pass game was 27th in the league in TDs. We had 29 running TDs and 17 passing TDs, in a league where not a single other team had more running TDs than passing. Enough with pretending that Tyrod deserves all or even most of the credit for this. Give him credit for being at terrific runner and not a very good passer. Give the whole offense and mostly the run game credit for that scoring and throw a large chunk of that credit to the STs and defense.

He doesn't suck. He did only barely start a whole year in college. But the second doesn't prove the first. Having said that, if they don't think he's a franchise guy I'd love to see them trade back. It's not "known" to be a crappy class. That is what is known as an opinion. We'll know three or four years from now.

If he'd said that, you'd really have a point. But he, you know, didn't. What generally happens here is happening again. The guys who don't like the reporters mis-report what was actually said, twist the words and then hold up their own words for ridicule, the classic straw man argument.. Quote Bucky directly. What did he say that was so unreasonable? I read both. Looks to me like two guys whose opinions mildly disagree. I don't see any factual refutation anywhere. Don't see it. Not even close. What exact words does Sully say, and which of Vic's exact words refute them? So, you think that Jerry said that teams shouldn't look at QBs? Or shouldn't have looked at these QBs? He didn't say that.

It all looks fine to me. I don't agree with all of it, but it all makes sense. You really have a problem with a reporter saying bad things about an owner whose two sports teams went or are going 33-37 and 7-9? A guy with Terry Pegula's ratio of wining seasons to losing seasons? Well, to each their own, I guess.

This sort of thing is what happens when a team gets in salary cap trouble.

Curtis Painter in the 6th isn't a bad pick. And it was Chris Polian running the draft by that time, not Bill. Sorgi was also a round 6 guy. You can't blame a GM when a 6th doesn't work out. It's what generally happens. Wouldn't surprise me a bit if they don't pick him for that reason. And I'm generally in favor of making character a factor. But the potential reward on Kelly is so high down the road that I wouldn't mind them using a 5th or so on him and giving him an ultimatum about behaving himself. Make him understand he's going to sit for a while, and that they don't feel forced to keep him at all when they've only spent a 5th on him. I wasn't thinking that way till I saw the Waldman piece. But the reward here is so potentially large, and a 5th is a pretty small risk.

The question was always whether it was actually Modrak making those picks or whether coaches and front office guys made them. And it was always weird how we screwed up our early picks in that era but did well on the later ones. Isn't that almost impossible? Not if the personnel guy making the later picks is having the early picks taken out of his hands. See the Gaughan article on Modrak in another thread.

http://buffalonews.com/2017/04/12/analysis-honorable-tom-modrak-gray-man-bills-drought/ Gaughan has always had a lot of sources in the Bills locker room and front office, especially back in those years when he was one of the primary beat reporters. Ralph Wilson, for one, would always talk to Gaughan, but he had a ton of guys in his Rolodex back when there were Rolodexes. Modrak passed the other day and this is Gaughan's take on a subject that has been very controversial over the years ... how much he was to blame for the bad picks through the years he was here. Some excerpts: "Tom Modrak was a wonderful, high-character, class individual and an excellent football scout. Regardless of the Buffalo Bills' "Drought," there is universal agreement on the preceding statement in the football world. It's the truth. Many across the NFL have recognized it in the wake of Modrak's death at age 74 Tuesday. What kind of job did Modrak do for the Bills? That's where it gets gray. Not good enough, for sure. That's a fact for everybody involved with the football administration of the franchise the past 17 years. But it's hard to make too many definitive statements about Modrak's contributions to the Bills' because he never was the one in full control of the team's personnel. "'Tom does a good job, but he doesn’t make the last call,' late Bills owner Ralph C. Wilson Jr. told The News in January 2011. 'He puts the board up. We have a lot of hard-working scouts. But it comes down to making the last decision. That’s not Tom.'" ... and ... "Was it Modrak who decided Haloti Ngata couldn't play in the Buffalo defense, and the Bills should take Donte Whitner instead? Absolutely not. That was Dick Jauron and aide Bill Kollar." ... and ... "Modrak loved Jordy Nelson in 2008. Nelson went 36th to Green Bay. The Bills picked 41st. Jauron and offensive chief Turk Schonert were desperate for a tall receiver. Schonert probably correctly sensed his seat already could get hot. The pick was James Hardy. Reach. Bust. Not Modrak's fault. "Then there was Aaron Maybin. Again, Jauron & Co. were desperate for an edge rusher in the Tampa defense. Desperate. Modrak saw Maybin's potential to rush from both sides but knew it was a reach. Did he jump up and down hard enough to object? It's what the coaching staff was begging for." This is the way it always seemed to me, but it's interesting to finally see it in black and white. And Gaughan does seem to be saying that maybe Modrak could have fought harder for what he believed in. It always seemed weird how we did so well in the later rounds but screwed up the early picks, the most important ones. This helps explain it. Coaches and front office folks don't get as involved in the later picks.

Did you read the story? Why would the Pats care? What he said was totally reasonable. Again, did you read the story? It wasn't disrespectful and it wasn't a me-me-me thing. He comes across smart and reasonable.

I agree. You're not drafting only for the Tyrod-led Bills, but he's the starter this year and so far he's shown much more ability to work with WRs than TEs. TEs tend to work the middle and the deep and intermediate middle is a weakness for Tyrod. Clay has been open a ton, but he hasn't shown the productivity to justify his salary and a lot of that is because he's not getting thrown to. Things can change, but last off-season they went on about how it was their emphasis to get Tyrod throwing more to that area and it never happened.

No, Bucky has one going in the top ten, and four going in the first round. He's not saying it'll happen, but he is saying it's possible. QBs often go higher than their value.

He wasn't trying. Nix was making a joke when he said that he did that. It has been taken seriously in Bills land, but it shouldn't have been.