OldTimer1960

I just replied above, but specifically to the edited point: I don't think that you can disregard what your scouts and front-office evaluate. This is a matter of "shades of gray". There are prospects this year who have some chance to become a good starting NFL QB. Perhaps their probability of doing so isn't rated as high as some of next year's (or last year's) prospects, but there is some chance of success. This is true of all prospects, regardless of position. As always, they will have to balance taking a shot at the ever-important QB position vs taking a player that they rate higher at another position. This year, I think that they do need to take at least 1 and maybe 2 shots at a QB after round 1, but I would not like to see them take a QB in round 1 or 2 over a player at another position whom they rate much higher. Desperately grasping for a QB has a high probability of wasting a pick that could have been used on a better player at another position.

Usually, I wouldn't agree with this view, but I now agree. Take 2 QBs in the mid-late rounds and hope. Make a quick decision on them (by next year's draft) and swing again on a higher-rated prospect next year if this year's picks don't pan out. My only caveat is to try to find a competent veteran to play until they get lucky and find a young QB that can be good for years to come. I'm thinking Alex Smith or (to a lesser extent) Matt Flynn. I'd consider Kyle Orton, if available. I'd rather not take a wild shot on a questionable prospect early this year, but after round 1 if they pick any of the guys and take a shot, I'd still like to see a vet available to start this year.

I wouldn't want to trade *much* for Flynn. He hasn't proven anything yet, except that he had a good game at an opportune time. Same could be said for Frank Reich way-back-when, but teams weren't lining up to trade for him.

Taking Nassib is way over-hyped. Pete Carroll coached at USC, yet he didn't go trade for Matt Leinart or Matt Cassell. Chan Gailey coached a bunch of players at GT, yet they didn't draft Stephen Hill (or any other GT player that I know of).

So many talk about the "developmental" QB. What does "develop" a QB mean? It surely doesn't mean take a guy that does not have the physical talent/skills to play at the NFL level and "teach" him to be a star. I think "developing" a QB is a misnomer. What it really means is: take a shot on some guy mid-to-late in the draft and get lucky that everyone mis-evaluated him (ie, he is way better than anyone thought) and then take credit for "developing" him. To be clear, I think that coaching and experience do play some important role in QB play, but I don't think that you can "coach up" a guy that doesn't have "it". "It" consists of at least a minimal level of NFL physical skills and a bunch of intangibles that are very difficult to assess including: leadership, work-ethic, desire, toughness, quick-decision making, "game intelligence", confidence and probably some other things.

I hope that you are right and that Buffalo has one of them!

Peyton Manning, Drew Brees, Tom Brady and Joe Montana are/were all super-star QBs who don't possess world-beating physical qualities (to be sure, better than good enough but not "great"). What Manning, Brady and Brees have is the smarts, work-ethic, leadership and natural ability to quickly process what they see. They augment that with a strong-enough arm and excellent accuracy. John Elway and Steve Young had top physical tools (arm strength, size, speed), but many of the "best" don't. I think it is difficult to draft QBs because those things that make Manning, Brees, Brady and Montana special are hard to measure/quantify. In particular, the ability to quickly process and react to what they see is rarely even called upon for many college QBs who play on teams whose talent far exceeds that of their opposition (eg USC), because they have "all day" in the pocket and their receivers are so good that they are usually throwing to guys that are open by 5 yards rather than the 5 inches that they'll have to deal with in the NFL.

Interesting point. I am sure that the the situation, coaching and talent level that a QB is drafted into has to have some effect on the success of the QB. I would guess, though, that the potential is more that an otherwise good QB could be messed up by a bad situation/coaching rather than that a not-so-good QB could succeed wildly because of coaching/talent around him. I don't mean to say that it is black and white, but that would be my guess. To Buffalo's situation: Positives: Provided that they can resign Levitre and Wood is healthy, I think the OL is a positive. The RB situation looks very strong. If Pettine can get what I think is a talented D to play well, that can be a big positive. All of these can lighten the load on a young QB (none of which Losman had the luxury of having). Negatives: I would say that the Bills' WRs/TEs are in the bottom 25% of the league, especially with Campbell facing a long recovery from knee surgery. A very young/inexperienced OC may struggle, particularly with helping a rookie QB learn about the NFL. A fan-base starving for success and the rare success of some recent QB draft classes may lead to a tremendous amount of pressure on a young QB to succeed immediately. In spike of some recent examples to the contrary, it still usually takes young QBs years to grow into the job in the NFL. Overall, I think it is about a neutral/slightly positive situation for a young QB. If I thought that there was a potential good starting QB in the draft, I wouldn't let the Bills' current situation deter them from picking one. I don't really know, but I don't *think* the QB prospects are very good this year. I guess, I'd prefer to see them go after a veteran guy that can start indefinitely while they look for a really good young QB prospect over the next 2-3 years. My preferred option would be Alex Smith, depending on the cost to get him. After that, Matt Flynn at least showed something but the body of work is really limited. I can't think of many other good options unless Tennessee let Matt Hasselbeck go and he still wanted to play. Beyond those guys, I think you are really scraping the bottom of the barrel, but with the apparent dearth of good rookie prospects that might be what they are stuck with. Regardless, I think that they need to at least take a shot at a QB somewhere in the 1st 3 rounds of the draft. However, I think (from what I've read) that this year is more a "swing and hope" rather than "choose your future start QB".

There is a reasonably good chance that there are zero future NFL starting QBs in this draft. I don't understand the "just wait until later in the draft, there are plenty of future star QBs available". Here is a look at the QBs from drafts 1999-2012. Yes, there are a couple of great years, but most times you are lucky to find 1-2 good starting QBs in an entire draft: 1999: 1 good starting QB (D. McNabb), 4 first round wash-outs (Tim Couch, Akili Smith, Daunte Culpepper, Cade McNown), 1 bad 2nd round pick: Shaun King 2000: 1 miraculous 6th pick (Tom Brady) 1 decent starting QB in round 1(Chad Pennington), 1 OK starter from 6th round (Marc Bulger) 2001: 1 tremendous pick (Drew Brees 2nd), 1 troubled good starter (Michael Vick), 2 2nd round washouts(Quincy Carter, Marques Tuiasosopo) 2002: 1 decent starter (4th round pick David Garrard), 3 1st round misses (David Carr, Joey Harrington, Patrick Ramsey) 2003: 1 good starter (1st Carson Palmer), 3 first round misses (Byron Leftwich, Kyle Boller, Rex Grossman) 2004: Great year (E Manning, P Rivers, B Roethlisberger), Matt Schaub (3rd), missed on JP Losman (1st) 2005: Great pick (A Rodgers), OK starter (Alex Smith), miss: Jason Campbell 2006: 1 OK starter (Jay Cutler), 2 1st round misses (Vince Young, Matt Leinart), 2 2nd round misses (Kellen Clemens, Tarvaris Jackson) 2007: 0 good starters, 2 1st round busts (Jamarcus Russell, Brady Quinn), 3 2nd round picks (Kevin Kolb, John Beck, Drew Stanton) 2008: 2 quality starters (Matt Ryan, Joe Flacco), 2 2nd round misses (Brian Brohm, Chad Henne) 2009: 2 good starters (Matt Stafford, Josh Freeman), 1 looks like a bust (Mark Sanchez), 2nd round miss (Pat White) 2010: 1 good starter (Sam Bradford), 1 1st miss (Tebow), 1 2nd miss (Jimmy Clausen) A little early to tell on some of the following: 2011: Cam Newton looks very good, Jake Locker (jury is out), Blaine Gabbert (on his last chance), Christian Ponder (jury is out), Andy Dalton (looks good, but weak playoff game), Colin Kaepernick (looks great so far) 2012: Luck, Griffin and WIlson look great so far, jury is out on Tannehill and Weeden

Ahh, but what if all of the rookies are really nobodies (as advertised)? Then you are stuck with Fitzpatrick for yet another year (and while I hold him in high regard for his effort, he isn't a good starting NFL QB). I think this is a recipe to get the Defense to quit again, just as it appears they did last year. When the QB isn't good enough, it is hard for the D to really fight with everything they have.

So, to be clear, which of the 6 or 7 certain all-star NFL QBs should the Bills take in this year's draft? Of course, if there are that many certain future Pro-Bowl QBs, I agree with the idea of "let's just draft one of 'em".

Agreed, but it doesn't look like any of the QBs in this draft are the long-term answer either.

I agree. I think the Bills have a very good level of DL talent and in the secondary (assuming they can keep Jairus Byrd). They need LB help and coaching help. They underachieved very considerably last year. I do think that the vanilla scheme that was run hurt them badly. As Pettine said, you have to disguise what you are doing. Offenses do it all the time, why wouldn't a defense do it? Most of the good defenses do a good job of confusing the offense.

You may be right to say that there will be good starting QBs to come out of the draft, but it might really be as bad a year as the "experts" feel. 2-3 good starting QBs coming out in a single draft is really a very good year. There are plenty of years where no good starting QBs emerge from an entire draft. For instance, look at the 8 year period from 1990-1997. Here are the starting QBs that came out in those 8 years: Excellent Starters: Brett Favre Drew Bledsoe Steve McNair Mark Brunell OK Starters: Neil O'Donnell Trent Dilfer Gus Frerotte Kerry Collins Jake Plummer In that same 8 years, here are all the QBs drafted in rounds 1 and 2: Rnd 1 Jim Druckenmiller Steve McNair Kerry Collins Heath Shuler Trent Dilfer Drew Bledsoe Rick Mirer David Klingler Tommy Maddox Dan McGuire Todd Marinovich Jeff George Andre Ware Rnd 2 Jake Plummer Tony Banks Todd Collins Kordell Stewart Matt Blundin Tony Sacca Brett Favre Browning Nagle So, only 4 very good starting QBs came out of 8 consecutive drafts. 5 more "OK" guys whom might compare reasonably with Alex Smith also came out during that time - but those guys fall into the "they're OK, but their team was always looking to replace them category". Beyond those, there were a host of guys taken in the first 2 rounds that didn't pan out at all. They were drafted high because teams desperately needed QBs. In 1999, the following QBs were taken in the first round: Tim Couch, Donovan McNabb, Akili Smith, Daunte Culpepper and Cade McNown. Shaun King was the only 2nd rounder. 1 of those 6 turned out to be pretty good. There are dry-spells and there are drafts where multiple good QBs come out. I think that you have to trust your evaluation of the players coming out and balance that with taking a "shot" on a QB reasonably often. Here is a link to NFL.com where there is a list of QBs drafted by year and round. I think looking at it, most will conclude that there are very few good starting NFL QBs in most drafts and it is very difficult to find them. http://www.nfl.com/draft/history/fulldraft?type=position

I am not saying that they shouldn't draft a QB, just that they need someone (besides that rookie) to start this year and perhaps longer. From everything that I have seen and read, there are no really good "rookie gunslingers" coming out in this draft. It happens - some years there are no good NFL QB prospects in the draft. What we've seen recently with strong QB drafts is the exception rather than the rule.

The problem, at least as I see it, is that there are only very shaky QBs in this draft with each being a long-shot to develop into a good starting QB. I'd rather have Alex Smith for a few years, take a flyer on a rookie to see if we get lucky and (assuming we don't) then go all-in next year to get a better rookie prospect. Alex Smith isn't Tom Brady, but he could be a winner with a great D and running game - exactly what the Bills are trying to build (and they have a lot of the parts).

Thank you! I don't know why this is such a big topic for some people. Look at offenses in the league. In the same game they often play 2 rbs, 1 rb, 2 TEs, 0 TEs, 2 WRs, 3 WRs and sometimes 4 WRs. They also have the QB under C and in the shotgun, sometimes they even run a wild-cat with 0 QBs. If an offense can play that many different sets in the same game, why is it so hard to believe that a defense can play multiple sets in a game?

OK, sorry if I missed an inside joke. I still have the same view, even if it doesn't necessarily apply to this specific case.

I agree completely. First, all of these guys are professional athletes who spend far more time working on their craft than many here realize. Just for that they deserve some respect. Add in that Kyle Williams is one of the best players on the Bills and does it with tremendous work-ethic and attitude and this disrespect is just awful. I know that it is easy to be emboldened by the anonymity of a message board. I also know that many of the sports "journalists" who we follow (especially locally) are particularly snotty, flippant and disrespectful. However, I'd hope that we can raise the level of civility a bit here. It is certainly fair game to be critical and state opinions - after all that is part of what a message board is about, but try to do so respectfully.

Definitely in hind-sight it would have been better to take Russell Wilson instead of TJ Graham, however the book isn't written on either. Wilson has been great this year, but you never know if defenses will devise a way to neutralize him by keeping him in the pocket and letting his height work against him. Graham had a disappointing year, but he does have some physical talent. Anyway, I get your point and I don't disagree strongly. Once past the 2nd round, the "opportunity cost" of taking a flyer isn't that high so fire away.

I respectfully disagree with the options listed besides Alex Smith. Clausen was given his shot and the Panthers thought so little of him that they drafted Cam Newton after one year with Clausen. Colt McCoy appears to be another Fitz - smart, try-hard guy who doesn't have the physical talent to be a good starter. While Kellen Moore looked OK in the pre-season and was great in college, he is a very long-shot to be even a decent starting QB. I'll admit that Moore seems to have a special ability to time passes, but his arm is so weak and his body so frail (for the NFL that is) that defenses would quickly catch on to him if he played more than a little bit. These are just my opinions...

You assume that there is no opportunity cost (ie what else you could have had using the pick otherwise) when you take shots at QB prospects. I think that there still needs to be judgement applied when considering QB prospects. A bunch of flawed QB prospects isn't any better than what the Bills currently have and there are still plenty of other holes to fill on this team (WR, TE, LB, CB, RT...)

C'mon man, how much time did you really spend reading my 2 or 3 3 sentences? Did you REALLY need to make your smart-ass comment? Didn't that also waste people's precious time, as you suggest? I'm thinking that you like to see your snarky comments as you sit in your parent's basement... i don't really want to have a running argument with you. I try to add thoughtful comments to this message board. I don't have time to read every post, so I beg everyone's pardon if someone else has the same opinion. Lighten up Francis.

If GR has to hang their hat on Schoop, then I pity them. He is an arrogant as*. His "I am smarter than all NFL coaches nonsense with never punting on 4th down is a joke. He is annoying on every level as a self-appointed know-it-all. If his comedy schtick was any good at all, he MIGHT be amusing...

Oh, forgive me for not having read every single post in the thread. I hope that you won't ban me from the board. There are some people here that need to work on being a lot less snotty. Nobody thinks these smart-ass comments are funny.