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I agree with you on not trading up (other than perhaps the rarest of situations). The Bills did that too liberally over the last few years. Ryan Denney, McCargo, Losman and possibly either Wood/Levitre(??) were all results of trade-ups. We'll see on the linemen, but otherwise trading up has bought nothing but busts and at a higher cost as you point out. 2ndly, I agree with all your characteristics of a successful QB. However, by just those standards JP Losman should have been successful. That whole off-season where he was coming into the starting job, all we heard was about his dedication and drive. He moved here in the off-season, lived at OBD, studied film endlessly with Sam Wyche, getting every tip imaginable from Ron Jaworski. There couldn't be a more driven person from every story we heard... all that didn't work. We moved up to get him because we believed that Green Bay would take him to be Favre's successor a few picks later. Regardless of what we think of JP now, at the time of being evaluated, he could easily have been profiled very similar to Favre.

A few years ago, I was messing around and looked back at a draft from 5 years before (I think it was the year Brady was drafted in the 6th round). I looked at every pick and re-ranked them based on how they turned out. Obviously Brady became the #1 overall pick. I struggled to fill 2 rounds of worthy picks out of the 7 rounds plus compensatory.

I'm sure there's been a lot of statistical analysis of everything from physical capabilities to IQ to game stats to starts to conference/team, probably all the way back to high school results/stats I would like to see one of these sites like ProFootballFocus.com try to develop a forecasting capability (they can keep it secret and sell it if it works) and make some calls on the QBs before each draft. After 5-6 years they would have a track record to see if they can do better.

That's the scary part of the whole thing. Nobody in the world has shown that they can consistently pick a quality QB. There's not a single person that can stand up and say that they can do that. Its the craziest part about this game. On the right roll of the dice you get Manning and you go from 10 year loser to 10 year winner/SB (obviously not as simple as just that). You pick Ryan Leaf, Heath Schuler, JP Losman, Akili Smith, Cade McKnown and you set your team back 5 years.

I don't think I had seen anyone post this,... its about a week old Good News / Bad News I don't think there's anything in this that we don't know or haven't debated. They're not anticipating a surprise season. This site is a bit more objective in their reviews than the other sites as they keep comprehensive stats on every play, position and player, so they have decent backup to their point of view.

Can't pin that one on him. "The Ted Ginn Family" was Cam Cameron's infamous pick....

These were impressive sacks against first string. Like I said on the 2nd one, he didn't just beat a double team, but went through it. These weren't jabroni coverage sacks. Oh yeah, and Jim Leonhard looked good too. INT, plus SACK, plus returning punts

A) He's starting B) He had 2 monster sacks in the first Quarter from RDE. Isn't Jets LT, D'brickashaw Ferguson a Pro Bowler? First sack he slammed Sanchez like a ragdoll. 2nd sack he overcame a double team block to dump him again. C) On a more positive front, both Clausen and Sanchez looked pretty bad out there...

Emotions run high about Maybin on this board. I don't have a clue how he'll end up, but Eric Moulds was being shouted about as a bust until he broke out in a BIG way in year #3. Almost nothing from him years 1/2

WOW, I just listened to the press conference on the Bills website and really gave him some BIG TIME love!!! That is good new... Chan seems like the type that doesn't impress easy enough to speak like that about someone. I can't wait for the 3 sack performance in the first preseason game!

You make a good point, but it was discussed by some in a different thread yesterday. Schobel would have been an awful LB. While we know and love his pass rush skills, that's not all a OLB needs. He would have been badly exposed in pass coverage. Belicheck would have a field day with him anytime he wasn't rushing. Good coordinator would find ways to make him cover athletic TEs and he'd be toast. I think this list would have a lot to say about his transition to OLB if he was playing for us...

I generally agree with this, with several things to add I can't stand this ongoing trend of players dealing with their issues through non-communication with the team. Nobody can figure out whether they'll play or not play,.. be at OTAs or not,... retire or not. In Schobel's case HE should have spoken to the GM when he was hired, told him that he didn't want to be part of another rebuilding effort again, that he and his agent wouldn't devalue himself in the media, but that that they should trade him. I have to believe that he could have been traded in that scenario for a 5/6 round pick, which is better than nothing He's devalued himself to be worth 0 to the Bills, despite the size of his contract and the loyalty the organization gave him. He's been saying he's retiring all along and then changing his mind at the last second essentially forcing the Bills to cut him or guarantee $8M. Now we have no leverage and he could get signed by the Patriots. I'm not sure what Buddy could have done differently because Schobel tied his hands with his actions, keeping the Bills from doing anything other than eventually releasing him... so for our "classy" move, we'll see how much "class" we get in return if he signs in the AFC East??

Right on!

I agree with your points... they should have traded him much earlier and given the current predicament he should stay on the Failed to Report list, not released

No way,... Schobel's a football player who know's the score. New regime, new system, change of position, he missed all of OTA w/o even communicating to the team, plus he'd be look to as the veteran leader on a young team. If he was going to play, he needed to be here at the start of camp (day 1). Not make up his mind over the next 10 days or so as he seemed to be saying. He's going to play a single year and pull all this off by walking in late. If the Bills had allowed him to do that we would be screaming louder than we did for Jauron's head...

Agree completely,... Maybin can't just be dismissed based on last year. We have to see what he has... The other thing about Schobel is that I've had doubts about his ability to transition to OLB in the first place. Why would it have made sense to switch him to an un-natural position, for one year. I think we would have been screaming about what boneheaded move that was by week 4. Also, like it or not, we're on a 2-3 year plan, Schobel shouldn't have been retained for the exact same reason that TO wasn't. We need to see what the young guys who have a shot at being the core of this team for the next 4-6 year have.

That's exactly right. The frustration that I have is that the Bills always seem to be waiting for the other teams to set the market. All 32 teams are in the same boat. Somebody has to start signing players. We're several years now that we're right at the tail end. If we're at the tail end a day before training camp begins that's fine, but this is a team that can't afford their #9 pick to not be in training camp when they're trying to right themselves after a decade of futility. I'd love to see some metric that looks at the last 10 years, ranks what order the first round signed in each year and then averages each team across their rankings. I would be real curious to see where the Bills fell??

I think he chose to play baseball instead. He then re-entered the draft the following year and the Raiders to a chance on picking him in the 7th round (or something like that)

So I guess that points to the single common thread in everything.... Ralph Wilson

The players that really fit the criteria that get talked about here as to whether they'll amount to anything are -- Steve Johnson (gets lots of love) -- Shawn Nelson (gets lots of love) -- Reggie Corner (is he more than a nickel back?) -- Chris Ellis (very little love) I guess the news in this is that Johnson and especially Nelson aren't on the list If each team has 4 such candidates, that's a pool of about 120 players... none of ours make the cut in the top 25

Others that may qualify as I took another look at the roster are Ellis Lankster (CB), Cristian Gaddis ©, Chad Simpson (RB), Jonathan Stupar (TE), Marcus Buggs (LB), Lydell Sargent (CB), John Corto (S) These are obviously lesser known names than the first group I put up

Football Outsiders put together a list of top 25 prospects on current NFL rosters. The criteria for this list is the following: • Be in the second, third, or fourth year of their pro career • Have been drafted in Rounds 3-7 or signed as an undrafted free agent • Have started fewer than five career games in the NFL • Still be on their rookie contract Here is #11-25 http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/insider/news/story?id=5374008 Here is #1-10 http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/insider/news/story?id=5374109 So guys that are talked about here that would qualify... Steve Johnson, Shawn Nelson (not sure how many starts), Jamon Meredith, Brian Brohm, Chris Ellis, Nic Harris, Reggie Corner (not sure how many starts) Others that don't... Byrd/Hardy/Maybin/McKelvin (drafter too high), Bell/Wood/Levitre (too many starts) There are '0' Buffalo Bills on the list...

Good post,... I like your perspective so this is really a hell of an important year. We'll either come out of it high as a kite or in dumps On offense there's Bell, Wood, Levitre, Steve Johnson, Hardy, Nelson... not to mention QBs On defense there's Maybin, McKelvin, Pozluszny, Byrd All of these guys are 2-3 year guys. If 2/3 of these guys are successful we'll have to feel good for the following year and start living the "upside". If they're a bunch of busts then we truly keep starting over... ugh

OK, so lots of good responses... My question then becomes why are we so down on Demetrious Bell (lets ignore the injury for a moment) The guy seems to define "upside"... young, cheap, highly athletic, has some start under his belt, put in a very difficult situation last year -- learning no-huddle -- last second cut of Langston Walker -- all sorts of other injuries on the line -- 2 other rookie starters -- starting 5 had 0 pre-season games under their belt -- firing OC at start of season with Van Pelt thrown in -- new coaching staff seems to be thinking well of him despite having no ties to a 7th rounder they didn't draft I'm sure I could add more if I thought about it some more. His "upside" seems remarkable, we should be excited about how much he'll improve his second year, but everyone seems to be down on him. I don't know jack about being an offensive linemen and have reviewed no tape of his body of work, so if anyone can explain to me why we're negative about Bell, but ga-ga over the "upside" of a bunch of others, who are backups here or elsewhere I would appreciate it

Now I definitely get why we keep using the phrase....