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I have a hard time buying this story. What rational GM would not go for the better trade, particularly given that the Saints are also in the NFC? We may not like some of the FO moves, but nobody is that inept. My guess is he doesn't have his facts quite right...

I like this reasoning!! Our best draft move this decade was in 2001, moving back 3 spots, drafting Nate Clements and then turning the "free" 2nd round pick into Travis Henry

Ask Brian Brohm about that... if we came out a year earlier, he was projected to be a top 10 pick. Seems like $40M+ guaranteed is worth putting off the completion of formal degree a bit. Pros: all talk about trading the whole team for Luck to move up to #1 will stop on this board Cons: less likely to have Fairly available at #3 hmmm...

The position on them isn't necessarily to dump them, but at what price should they be resigned. Whitner made #8 overall money. Is he a good Safety,... yes. Is he worth a raise over #7 money,... NO. Will he be back? Depends on whether some team will pony up, which I'm guessing is NO. If he has to take less will he come back to the Bills or take less elsewhere? Depends on his ego. Some players won't go back to their current teams if they have to play for less, their egos will only allow them to do that elsewhere...

I'd like the person who knew that Peyton Manning (1), Donovan McNabb, Chad Pennington, Michael Vick (1), Eli Manning (1), Philip Rivers, Ben Roethlisberger, Jay Cutler, Aaron Rodgers, Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco, Josh Freeman, Sam Bradford (1), and would be hits... AND that Ryan Leaf, Tim Couch (1), Akili Smith, Duante Culpepper, Cade McNown, David Carr (1), Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey, Carson Palmer (1), Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman, JP Losman, Alex Smith (1), Jason Campbell, Vince Young, Matt Leinert, JaMarcus Russell (1), Brady Quinn, would be first round busts Stand up, identify yourself, explain your methodology and why you're not being paid $10M/year as a consultant to NFL teams for their draft BTW, those are all the Round 1 QBs taken since 1998 in the first round when Peyton Manning was selected. excluded Matthew Stafford and Mark Sanchez as not sure where they'll fall yet Incidentally, that's 13 hits and 19 misses (40%). Among #1 picks overall its 4 hits and 5 misses (slightly better 44% rate) I'm not saying we shouldn't draft Luck if he falls to us somehow, but trading up is way too big a risk to even consider. Anybody who can pick QBs with such certainty would be a freelance consultant to NFL teams making very BIG dollars.

Exactly my thoughts... we cannot afford to trade-up. CB will become an instant problem position to add to the mess. Plus the pick that we give Carolina for next year on this proposed trade will be the 2012 #1 overall if we pull the trigger on this scenario. No trades that involve next year's #1 pick as we'll be lamenting how stupid we were same time next year!

All I can say to that is that the Bronco's have been going all out the last 3 weeks, Tebow's been driving them. Nobody was running for the bus or riding out the string or trying to get the number 1 pick overall. They won their last two. The pathetic Raiders, finished 8-8. They beat 2 division rivals and took the Colts to the wire in a must-win for them. The Lions improved to 6-10, winning their last 3 with a 3rd string QB including 10-6 Bucs and come from behind against Dolphins. Its as simple as this, the Bills needed to finish strong. People are absolutely playing for their jobs not only w/ the Bills, but with whatever future organization they may need to entice to sign them. Bruce Smith and Cornelius Bennett might have loafed through a game like this without raising questions, but nobody on the current team can afford that... I'm also not just talking about the last game, but the last 5 as a group!

Isn't this an overwhelming problem? We're getting owned by a division rival that treated the game like it was preseason. The Bills had no cause to do that. If we were any kind of improving team, we should have knocked them on their asses. The players on our team should have had everything to play for. Let them be the ones to explain that this wasn't a real game to their fans/media. Teams that demonstrated improvement and can go into the off-season feeling better about next season all went out fighting... Raider, Lions, Bucs, Broncos (since Tebow's been starting). None of them laid down in Week 17 against division rivals.

You hit the nail on the head!

I don't think we need to go that far, but the rising team persona that they built up through the Pittsburgh game has been stripped. I don't think we should deny that. For the optimists, how many cornerstone pieces do we have in place? Offense: Seems to be: Wood, Levitre, Bell, Johnson (2nd WR) Maybe/Too soon to tell: Spiller, Fitzpatrick, Nelson Defense: Seems to be: Williams, Byrd Maybe/Too soon to tell: McKelvin, Moats That's half the starters if all the maybes come in. Man that's really thin... who is missing from this list?

I don't think I'm overreacting at all. Every team deals with injuries by year-end, plus the Jets were resting starters (Sanchez, Revis,...) A month ago this was thought to be a team on the rise. There were strong feelings that Fitz might be the answer at QB, that the run game had improved, that Stevie could be a upper-end receiver and that the defense had started playing much better in both shutting down the run and getting turnovers. An improving team has to show improvement to the end if we're to believe in that. They finished the last 5 games at 2-3, with all three losses (Vikings, Pats and Jets) looking horrible. The 2 wins against Cleveland and Miami, we generally unconvincing. The OT losses to the Ravens and Steelers made you feel better about the team's potential than the those two wins. We finished very poorly and a lot has to be looked at... we're farther away than we thought a month ago!

The truth is that both sides of the ball need a lot more help than we all thought a few weeks ago. Three weeks ago, there was a lot more conviction that Fitz could be a solution, the OL had played well, receivers were emerging. We just needed a real Tight End. I think the last 2 weeks have blown that up a bit. Defensive side of the ball, we need more help than we can list... My position would be that this organization cannot afford to trade up to get anybody. Trading up has contributed to our problems, in addition to the misses w/ first round picks that has been discussed, the trade-ups for Losman, McCargo and Ryan Denney all cost us additional second round picks, so they've been very costly. The best draft move we've made all decade was trading back 3 slots, selecting Nate Clements, gaining a 2nd round pick and using it on Travis Henry way back in 2001.

I'm absolutely NOT advocating trading up to get Luck. We cannot afford the price on any such idea.

The week before the Miami game, I started a topic stating that the next three games will be critical to either validating or dismissing the optimism about the team and about Fitzpatrick as our long term starter. Those games have now come and gone and I'll say that the optimism is gone. Leo Roth's 2nd comment on this piece says it all: http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20110104/SPORTS03/101040314/tbd This team still has an awful long way to go. We need to find a bonafide long-term starter somewhere or we'll continue to flounder and it will be impossible to build a contending team. We cannot afford to trade up to get Luck, it will cost too much for a team that can't afford to give anything and has too many needs. Our skill position big three Fitz, Fred and Stevie are closer to Frank Reich, Kenneth Davis and Don Beebe than they are to Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas and Andre Reed. Hardly the players that an ascending future can be built around... ... massively depressed!

I agree with a lot of what you're saying but question and a point: Q: Is anyone aware of any comprehensive scorecarding/benchmarking of draft success that any site keeps? I would love to see stats on this. How much better are the Pats/Ravens/Steelers than the rest of the league? and so forth Point: My biggest problem with anyone saying that "we should have never picked xxx, it was obvious that he would be a bust" is that nobody really knows that. If the guy wasn't picked where he was picked, someone else would have selected him with the next 5-10 picks. That is true for just about anyone. If the Bills didn't pick Maybin at 11, he would have been picked before 20 by somebody. If the Bills didn't trade up to get JP Losman, the Packers would likely have picked him a couple slots later. If the Bills didn't pick Mike Williams at 4 and selected Bryant McKinnie, the Vikings probably would have taken Williams at #7. Nearly all of these players would be the same bust that they were with the Bills. Its not like if Maybin wasn't picked at #11, then he would have become a 5th round pick. These players are scouted, rated and evaluated to death by the entire league and the top 1-2 rounds land pretty close to where they were picked, its just a matter of who gets the bust. So we could have picked Clay Matthews or Brian Orakpo last year instead and he would be a hit. The Redskins or Packers pick them maybe would have sucked and we'd be saying they can't draft.

Sorry, I meant Talley...

The other thing that irritates me to no end about the Maybin situation, is why can't he isn't at least a Special Teams stud. While thats small consolation for an 11th overall pick... he could at least be Mark Pike or Josh Stamer?? For crying out loud, we have safeties and CBs covering on ST, he wouldn't be an upgrade over that??

Tasker was a 4th rounder...

Yep,... go back to our Super Bowl years and just count the round 1-2 picks that made the team great Round 1: Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, Cornelius Bennett, Jim Richter, Henry Jones, Will Wolford, Shane Conlon, Thomas Smith, John Fina, James Williams Round 2: Thurman Thomas, Phil Hansen, Nate Odomes Now you just need a small number of later round hits to be great... Andre Reed, Steve Tasker, Darryl Talley We're trying to flip the script entirely and tout how some of these later round guys are turning into such great finds while missing on nearly every top pick. The real reason we're so bad is Mike Williams, Losman, McCargo, Maybin, Hardy, McGahee, Lynch, Whitner (about to leave)... don't depress me by adding more names. There's practically a starting line-up of first/second round busts

Haha... that's a really good one!!!

+1, this is the most inane idea that's been posted in a while

Its a great interview and a testament to how this team has changed that David Nelson and Arthur Moats are featured on the media interviews. They're both well spoken and big hits by the FO. Happy to see these guys in Bills uniforms for a LONG time!!

Well said!!

From the standpoint of whether to think of him as long term solution as QB, absolutely the next 3 games are critical. Great games and hes a legitimate candidate, crappy games and he goes back to the category of adequate back-up or as 1 year starter while first round pick gets ready after that. "his last year and a half"... I don't have a clue what he did before the past 8 games that would give him consideration as QB of the future for this team. Nobody's bashing him, I love the way he's playing. I'm simply pointing out that the next three games are crucial to determining off season strategy around the QB position. He's been starting and upside surprising for about 8 games. He's had 7 excellent games and 1 horrible one. Add three division games to this and we've got a larger body of work. 10 excellent games and 1 bad one is very hopeful... 7 excellent games with 4 bad ones, including the last 3 against division opponents leads to a different conclusion. I don't know where you get a year and a half from, but the next three games determine off season strategy, its as simple as that!

Starter for 2011 isn't the question... I think we all agree on that even if they draft a QB w/ a top 5 pick. ...they draft a prospect? I assume you mean in later rounds and not in the first 3, which gets focused on defense. ...and what of his contract? He's fine through next year. However, it will be a distraction all year if he's doing well, so they need to sign him to an extension. Extensions cost money for a starting QB. We certainly wouldn't do those things if the next 3 games are terrible or marginal. My point is that the next three games, highly affect our off-season strategy. Nix said during the bye week that we needed to find the best QB to draft for the future. Has that changed? What is good enough? These next three games are critical and not throwaways... that everyone is playing for the future is NOT an understatement and has greater meaning that it typically does. This is the inflection point in evaluating the season.