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I guess that's what this question is looking to address... lets see how long the list is that people from the crowd?

OK, I like the list so far... lets keep going. I'm going to keep Unitas off the list as it goes back too far before football operations were anywhere near as sophisticated - Steve Young - Doug Williams - Vinny Testaverde - Cedric Benson

A few weeks ago there was a discussion that prompted the following question... What NFL players, any team, have been a BUST on team #1 and then became a SUCCESS on team #2? Lets define BUST as someone who was drafted by team #1 and cut loose after 1-3 years as a failure. NOT people who were traded, left via free agency or were cut in a salary cap move. Lets define SUCCESS as someone who became a multi-year starter (off/def) or at least 1 Pro Bowl... NOT special teams stand-outs. I'm having trouble coming up with any from any team...

I think we could be back on track to projecting a Jauron-inspired 7-9 year! Its amazing that would now be considered success?!?

Bills game is playing this morning on NFL Network (game started at 7am) I have to say that as I watch Fred Jackson slithering through the cracks, he looks just like Thurman Thomas used to look with his running. I'm happy for CJ Spiller to keep developing and growing, but Jackson is just a really smooth player who deserves to play!

I like the way you say that as I'm a bit confused. Can a 304 lb guy really be an outside linebacker in the NFL?? Shouldn't we be playing a 4-3 with Carrington/Edwards as DE and Darius/Williams at DT? It seems to me that he's just too big to be a LB. Teams will game plan to exploit his lack of speed at that position. I'm thrilled he's playing well and want to see him on the field. But, I'm sure that I'm showing my ignorance on this point...

If 1 pans out we'll have a #1 and #2 receiver. That would be success! I don't think I'm expecting for 2-3 of them be stars. Failure is that we get a season and a half out of Housh and then we start looking for that #2 receiver. Signing a veteran receiver in his 30's is a move for a rising team... like when we got James Lofton. For us we need to see if there's a 2nd young gun in the group.

the desire is to find out how good they are?? I would relate it back to all the discussion about Steve Johnson in the year we had TO. He went from something promising to a zero factor because TO took up all the snaps on a losing team. In addition to those three there's Jones and Aiken who we keep hearing about. David Nelson had 31 catches last year,... can he go to 50-60? Naaman Roosevelt averaged 15.4 yards/rec,... can he maintain that at 30-40 catches? Why is Donald Jones #2 on the depth chart,... does he belong there? All more important questions to answer than,... does TJ Houshmanzadah have 1 or 2 good years left?

The FO has to project what the prospective growth of this team's situation is... respectable this year, wild card next year, contender 2 years out. That's our BEST CASE scenario unfortunately. With that as a "trajectory" the relevance of Houshmanzadah is ZERO! Either another strong receiver is among the younger players or we need to keep drafting/finding them. Signing Houshmanzadah is a waste of time, money and effort from building this team for the future.

OK, given that we're project at #31 in Power Rankings and we would all be exclaiming playoff level success if this team reached .500, doesn't it make more sense to let young players rise to the occasion than stopgap a guy like Houshmanzadah for a year? Just like everyone was saying that TO took reps away from Stevie 2 years ago, Houshmanzadah prevents us from seeing if David Nelson can be the same kind of guy... BUT YOUNGER! We traded Evans so that Nelson, Jones, Aiken and Roosevelt can be tested to go alongside Stevie and Roscoe.

Do we really like Houshmanzadah better than Lee Evans??? I thought the goal was to give the "young guns" experience and a chance to step? This would be a very puzzling move....

hmmm,... I agree with a lot of what you're saying. Also, your point on odds manipulation is correct. We'll see what happens with Aaron Maybin (Jets) and James Hardy (Ravens), but Bill's castoffs don't have a big track record of success. That's why it doesn't get discussed much. There's not a bunch of Darryl Lamonicas running around out there helping other teams to the playoffs/SB... I have to think about this a bit, but I'm having trouble coming up with much of any examples of players that failed on team #1, who then became stars on team #2?? Any help out there?? If that's the case, then the odds strategy may have even more merit?

I think its way premature to think about this approach based on this year's draft

Absolutely,... the strategy could work as a guideline and the decision to trade back is made while on the clock. That's when you'll get the best offer anyhow All great points as well!!

The goal is for 3-5 to stick each year, its the power of large numbers. Here's our Draft History Look at our first 3 rounds this whole decade, almost no success. Look at 2008 our hit rate for starters in rounds 1-3 is 33% (McKelvin), while hit rate in 4-7 is 29% (Johnson, Bell). If we had 3x the picks in those later rounds, we might have 5 starters out of that draft rather than 3?? As far as not enough reps, we manage to evaluate the later rounds and UDFA now. We have a pretty strong hit rate on UDFA, who come in expecting the least amount of reps, but we manage to figure out that Fred Jackson was a keeper...

In light of discussion on this board praising our drafting success in later rounds (Terrence McGee, Kyle Williams, Stevie Johnson, Demetrius Bell,...) and UDFA (Fred Jackson, George Wilson, Donald Jones, David Nelson,...) and lack of success in earlier rounds (too many to list), I'm wondering about a new draft strategy?? --Trade back out of rounds 1-3 entirely to stockpile overwhelming number of picks in rounds 4-7 --If we incrementally traded back, we should end up with 20+ picks in those later rounds each year --Picks in rounds 4-7 are signed easily at low cost --Those who are successful, stay on and will get paid based on success in the NFL --Those who don't,... well what do you expect from a 6th round pick? We would never have another Aaron Maybin, JP Losman or Mike Williams to talk about. If you have 20+ picks you're bound to hit on 3-5 of them, which is better than our draft success of late, if you go back and check the last decade. Have at it....

Great post... great finish!! Particularly if they want to make every effort to end the QB carousel and give Fitz every chance at being successful (in his contract year), they should do exactly what you're suggesting! He needs to address this sooner (as in this year)... They have to see what Fitz has in order to decide whether he should be signed for long term money, or we have to address QB position and the rebuilding takes a step back. I would hate to see us reach the end of this year and have to go on faith that Fitz could be good if only we had the OL fixed. It needs to be fixed now so that the season can be a clean evaluation of what we should do at QB... I don't see how this issue can be kept hanging?

I have fourteen year old twins... They wore Bills merchandise every week of their lives until they were about 8, often twice a week. One likes the Eagles and the other the Panthers... they openly mock me. Though I get to mock the Panther fan back lately. Otherwise we get along great!!!

I haven't heard how drops are considered? I wonder how much Stevie Johnson's drop against the Steelers hurt Fitz? 30+ yard TD pass in OT to win the game? That one ticks almost all the boxes on what QBR is supposed to achieve...

2000s... loved the Nate Clements pick as they got one of their guys and successfully pulled off a trade-back, selecting Travis Henry in the 2nd round with the extra pick... hated the Willis Magahee pick. I thought it was nuts given what they had at the time w/ Henry 1990s... loved the Eric Moulds pick, after Marvin Harrison was taken I thought he was the next best selection and happy the Bills got him... hated the Jeff Burris pick, not for any other reason than I was sick of them selecting CBs in the 1st round over the previous several drafts 1980s... loved Will Wolford selection to redeem my hated pick earlier in the round of Ronnie Harmon. My girlfriend's father at the time was a big college fan and I was watching the Rose Bowl? w/ him on New Years and this guy from Iowa fumbles like 6 times, made me notice, then the Bills pick him in the next draft... WHAT??

All right!! 2 wins per year guaranteed if this happens, based on the Fish getting personal fouls at the most inopportune moment of the game! http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/16/2069881/former-dolphins-star-bryan-cox.html

I was just about to post your point on the WRs, so I'll just agree with you. There's a serious problem with the selection process if either Carter or Brown go in before Andre Reed. Those guys were good, but Reed is 1-2 notches above them. Both of them took 3-4 years to take off, Andre was a stud (as a 4th round pick) from his rookie year.

hmmm,... I have to think about that one a bit as you make a good point. Here's my first reaction: Ultimately this methodology is intended to evaluate a team's draft, not individual players. So over time the cumulation of players that Packers draft over the Bills will not be differentiated by Starters, but by Pro Bowlers and Potential HOFers. Those get the bigger points. Given that the Packers have a young Aaron Rodgers, they won't be drafting QBs in the first 3-4 rounds, but developmental projects in the later rounds. Given that the Bills have QB issues, they would be drafting QBs higher. So this should work itself out when looking at the whole draft (especially over time) as in the first 3-4 rounds where the adjustment table gives bonus or demerit points focuses on teams drafting for their needs. Those players have a higher probability to start. Plus the STR, BUP and WSH don't generally come into use until year's 3-4 after the draft, so by then if a player's good enough they're not riding the bench anymore. How's that??

One more example on the issue of "luck". A QBs passer rating is what it is based on the results in each game. However, when the coaches review film, the re-adjust a real rating to better evaluate the QB based on what should have happened based on his actions. Fitz should get credit for a game winning TD pass in OT against the Steelers despite the fact that its not in his recorded rating as Stevie Johnson dropped the ball. Conversely, I don't know how many passes he threw right into a defenders hands that were dropped INTs. While is official rating stays the same, the coaches use his adjusted rating to evaluate what they really have in him... same thing here.

Its gotten a bit fragmented as we've been discussing it. To freshen up the methodology would work like this: For each pick the team gets a base #pts based on the result of that pick as follows: HOF = 8pt = Potential Hall of Famer (ex. Tom Brady, Ray Lewis, Troy Palamalu) PRO = 5pt = Selected to a minimum of 3 Pro Bowls (ex. Reggie Wayne, Matt Hasselbeck) STR = 3pt = At least 32 career starts (2 full years) (ex. Kyle Williams, Terrence McGee) BUP = 1pt = On NFL roster for at least 64 games (4 full years) (ex. George Wilson, Keith Ellison) WSH = 0pt = Less than 64 games on NFL roster (ex. Aaron Maybin before long) INJ = 0pt = Less than 48 games on NFL roster due to injury (ex. Kevin Everett) From there I created an adjustment table based on where they were picked. Which looks like this: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 UN HOF 1 2 1 0 0 0 0 0 PRO 0 1 2 3 1 0 0 0 STR 0 1 2 3 2 1 0 0 BUP -2 -1 -1 0 1 1 1 1 WSH -3 -2 -1 0 0 0 0 0 INJ 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Its scaled to what I'm calling expectations: Round 1 expecting elite players, no bonus for doing well, but penalty for doing poorly Round 2/3/4, expecting starters, with bonus for elite players Round 5/6/7, expecting depth players with some bonus for hitting on that, but don't want to over-reward for unexpected hits in late rounds. Intended to measure skill. Hits in late rounds are like winning the lottery, not skill. I realize that luck factors into how good a team becomes, but I'm trying to strip that out in order to measure drafting capability. I'm trying to remove luck form the metric, if possible. So you get both the base points and respective adjustments. The draft can be measure each year and the numbers update each year, so a teams draft might move around between year 3-6 until it stabilizes. There may be late bloomers like Eric Moulds was who was thought to be a bust until he electrified in year 3. He didn't reach a 3rd Pro Bowl until year 6, I believe, so the Bill's score for that draft year would have moved around all those years. The idea is not to measure a single year, but to look at how the scores move around over time. If several years of these scores were available probably 3 or 5 year moving averages would be very predictive of success and really quantify the difference between the capabilities of Front Offices