cage

I can't believe this thread is still alive a day later...

9/7 is also the average between my cousin's b-day (9/5) and mine (9/9)

Haha,.. that gave me a good laugh. Your guidance makes a good point!!

Wow! Between him and Meriweather, they're giving up on some high recent draft picks.

Isn't part of good dry humor that you come off as serious, when what you're saying is actually ridiculous??

Wow,... everyone jumped hard on that one. I guess I should've added one of the joking emoticons to this one. I'm just plucking everyone's nerves on a boring Tuesday... it wasn't a serious post

Here are the latest ESPN Power Rankings... ESPN Power Rankings I think we're being badly disrespected. We clearly should be in the 20s B*stards!

Ha,... good one!

No flames from here, I agree with you! Whenever they looked good last year it was the same story. Innovative play calling made the whole offense look good. Let hope that Gailey and Fitz have it in them week in and week out. What's often frustrating is the inconsistency. They're taking on the Steelers one week ready to knock them off in OT and then another week they look lackluster and mediocre exposing the inadequacies of the team. Can Gailey and the coaches be as consistent as what they're asking of the players??

yep...

Wang should've be at Center, between Levitre and Wood! They had him in the wrong position.

Goes back to more previous front office screw-ups... should've resigned Jabari Greer and let McGee walk when his last contract ended, rather than extend him.

You're making a bunch of good points... its awesome that the 7th page of a thread hasn't degenerated into insults and nonsense, we're still having a great discussion!! The criteria didn't necessarily call for STARs, just SUCCESS. Which could be a mult-year starter that never makes the Pro Bowl. Given where we've been with our OL, we don't necessarily need Ubrik/Pears to be Steve Hutchison and Anthony Munoz,... but we're desperate to find some Jerry Ostroski's who started on OL for 6 seasons. I agree with your point that perhaps we should probably just consider the top 3 rounds in this as you point out that these are the guys that are given every chance to succeed. If they can't do it, when given every chance, then they just weren't good enough. I really like your reasoning throughout your response.

Well, I guess the point is don't friggin' trade for anyone who hasn't proven themselves in the NFL. Didn't we do that based on essentially an incredible performance in one single game that he had?

You're correct on Rob Johnson... bad oversight on my part

Fitz doesn't meet the criteria. He was traded to Bengals by the Rams, and then came to the Bills as a free agent. So I wouldn't consider him a bust. Trades are much harder in the NFL than they seem to be in other sports. Teams are reluctant to part with Draft picks unless they really value someone. If there's sufficient value placed on a player that another team will give up draft picks for him, then he shouldn't be considered a BUST. BUST is Maybin, Losman, Edwards, Flowers, who never established success on their original team and were cut. Its also about QBs that were not successful on their original team... David Carr, Tim Couch, Rob Johnson, Jason Campbell,... in our current case Tyler Thigpen meets the criteria. Lets hope Fitz has a great year and we solved our QB problem, because otherwise its back to the draft for the next candidate and three more years of sucking. It won't be Thigpen. If it hasn't worked for him yet, then its not going to.

You're missing a few things... I didn't say there weren't some examples. The board has struggled to identify 10, lets say there's 25 of these players,... lets say there's 50 out there. Out of about 4,500 players drafted since 1990, the hit rate on attaining success with other teams BUSTs is abysmal. I did not say anything about college and draft position defining a career. My conclusion is that the BEST indicator of success in the NFL appears to be how successful the player was with their first team. I defined a BUST as someone (from any round) who spent 1-3 years with their first NFL team and was cut because they weren't good enough (not traded, not left as a free agent, not cut as a salary cap move after previously being successful). If you cannot be successful with your first team (no matter who it is) its extremely unlikely that you'll be successful for a subsequent team... estimating 0.5% success rate. I'll give you 2 example of this in the Bills starting line-up... Ubrik and Pears. Also, on this board many people have extensively criticized the FO strategy of scouring the waiver wire rather than going after better players. Basically going after other teams cast-offs, particularly on the OL, which we all b*tch about plenty on this board. Lets see what happens,... by the way, I wish for them to be successful and me wrong!

I don't think I stated that it had to be first or 2nd rounder, can be any player. The point was that we often say that our coaching staff is bad at talent development. The evidence appears to show that ALL NFL coaching staffs can recognize a good player when they have one and can recognize bad players as well with incredible accuracy... once they're on the team and are working them out directly. The 1990 is arbitrary, you're right... basically just to keep us in relatively recent history as early responders were coming back with Johnny Unitas and others who played a long time ago before football front offices got as sophisticated in drafting and talent evaluation as they are today. Its still all a big sample as roughly 32 teams x 7 rounds x 20 years is nearly 4,500 players drafted. When adjusted for # rounds in draft, compensatory players and such, lets just call it 4,500 players in our population. So far the board has struggled to identify 10 players that were BUSTS on their original team that could be deemed SUCCESSFUL on a subsequent team. Lets assume that with more thorough research than this crowd-sourced discussion we can find 25 such players. That would still be merely a 0.5% success rate in converting busts from other teams. That's across the entire NFL. That's considered an unacceptably poor hit rate on mass volume businesses such as sending out spam e-mail ads, credit card junk mail and telemarketing! The conclusion is DON'T SIGN ANYONE WHO FLAMED OUT FROM SOME OTHER TEAM... no matter how highly you had rated them coming out of college. Its a waste of time, money and resources.

good one, I'll add that! Still struggling to identify 10 players since 1990 that fit the criteria.

I think the conclusion is forming rapidly. Second chances aren't nearly as prevalent as people have thought on previous posts. There just aren't that many examples of successful 2nd chances in the NFL. Cast-offs from the Patriots, Steeler, Ravens and other good teams won't necessarily make it on the Bills, Bungles or Lions... pretty much when a player gets cut by his original team in his first 1-3 years it means that he's not cut out for the NFL...period! It NOT that the Bills or other original team suck at developing talent. So don't bother signing those kinds of guys. The examples of this that come to mind in our starting line-up are Chandler (TE), Ubrik (RG) and Pears (RT). The bold prediction based on this exercise is that they won't work out. Neither will Buster Davis. They shouldn't keep him over any of the other WRs they selected themselves.

Not waived... they were trying to sneak him off of Injured Reserve (which had different rules at the time) and Polian was alert and swiped him.

Mt Washington makes the list! So our post 1990 list stands at... - Thomas Jones - Jason Babin - Cedric Benson - Leonard Davis - Jimmy Smith - Kyle Vanden Bosch - Ted Washington I'm blown away that we're struggling to find 10 players over the last 20 years who flamed out on team #1 and found subsequent success on a 2nd chance... WOW!

Actually just the opposite if you read through the thread. Don't ever bother with players that didn't make an impact and flamed out on their original team (regardless of which team). The success stories on 2nd chances are very few and far between...

How would you contrast McCargo's situation with Donte Whitner? Is it the same thing? Whitner was a 5 year starter, though obviously a disappointment.

The definition of a BUST is that you cut him loose for got nothing. If you received some compensation then other teams recognized the players value and compensated you. The Bills tried to trade Aaron Maybin and there were no takers, while we were able to get value out of Willis Magahee. The are both 1st round disappointments in Buffalo, but you wouldn't consider Magahee a bust. The point of the question for me is two-fold 1. Are the Bills worse at player development than other teams? 2. Is signing cast-offs from other teams be part of a good strategy? I think the answer is taking shape... 1. The best indicator of success in the NFL is a player being successful with the team that first drafted him. Regardless of who that team is or who is coaching it. There aren't a bunch of high picks from the Bills, Bengals, Browns, Lions cast-offs making the Pro Bowl with the Steelers, Ravens or Patriots as they're laughing their way to the bank. Conversely, cuts from the upper echelon teams are not finding secondary success with the lower echelong teams that are starving for talent. For better or worse, coaches in the NFL can detect a good player when they see one and aren't cutting loose good talent. 2. Simply don't bother signing players that never cut it with their original team. If they didn't make it with that team, regardless of how highly you ranked them coming out of college, then they just weren't good enough for the NFL and move on, ignore them. That's what the data on this question seems to say...