Gabe Northern
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Posts posted by Gabe Northern
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accuracy and decision making
This is like the JP Losman VS Matt Schaub debate among draftniks in 2004.
Schaub was what he was. Losman had it all, aside from accuracy and decision making...which could be "worked on."
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with the guidance of Cortez
I almost pissed myself I laughed so hard at this...
Who better to coach up Cam than some guy who had to spend 18 seasons in Canada after getting run out of town as a college QB coach?
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A piece on Foxsports on how to fix 6 of the leagues worst teams, and they totally got the Bills info wrong. Unless Buddy nix has been GM for 2 years already. Hmmm, i didnt think so. I expect second rate articles from second rate sites, but Fox Sports? Kind of suprised me
Here is the link to fox article.
http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/nfl-broken-teams-in-state-of-disrepair-021511
(the writer talks of the Bills needing defense, and the pressure is on Nix since the team failed on the Maybin pick)
Fail!
This is Nix's 3rd year. In his first he served as National Scout.
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He has physical athleticism.
He doesn't know how to use it.
If he can be coached up, sure he could be good.
But it appears he cannot be, so I'm going to have to say.... nope.
This talk of athleticism is nonsense. He is the size of a tall safety. If George Wilson played outside linebacker, he's look damn athletic too flying around there with much larger bodies.
The team gambled that he could reliably gain 25-35 pounds on his frame. He couldn't and now it's over.
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Interesting he says that we can get to the playoffs but we need a qb.
Agreed. Was also somewhat surprised with the cold water on Fitzmagic.
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Agreed. I have been scratching my head with this Locker guy ever since I saw McShay on his nuts last year. He was never any good - ever.
Locker was told by NFL Draft Committee that he was a 3rd round prospect.
McShay has no credibility. I may even be willing to believe Tom Modrak has a better handle on ranking prospects that McShay does.
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I find it amazing that last year Cowher, Gruden Shannahan, etc were the big names and this year it is no-name after no-name after no-name.
Munchak, and OL to head coach? Just sounds...odd?
Bud Adams publicly acknowledged he was only going to pay $2.5 million for a head coach because of Fisher buyout and other dead money.
I don't even think Gregg Williams would accept that.
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I did not realize that scouts chose the players instead of the GM. Why do we have a GM again?
Blame it on the GM all you want, but the role of the scouting operation is to provide the information used to draft players. I don't know if you don't understand how fundamental evaluations of all draft-eligible players is to the selection process, or if you're just needlessly argumentative.
The rot in the scouting operation is the main problem with this team's drafts. Not the identity of the person with "final say" on which name to pull off the board.
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Just as pissed as Steelers fans if Urbik turns into a player at RG?
I like how Nix emphasizes he was a 3rd rounder to make it seem like he's a decent player.
Kind of like some GM talking up Maybin as a 1st rounder after he gets signed somewhere else next year.
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I wouldn't be pissed that we passed on Bulaga if not for the fact that this board was overwhelmingly on board with a Bulaga pick. GMs can't be faulted for missing the Tom Bradys of the world in the 6th round. But they flatly MUST do better than some guys on the internet.
No, dude, we were all set at RT thanks to the Cornell Green signing.
He was the best tackle available in free agency according to several geniuses on this message board.
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THIS is what great contributions from late rounds is all about.
The "people" on this board who think Tom Modrak gets good production out of his late picks are way off base.
Good scouting operations get solid contributors EVERY 1st round pick and are able to fill out the roster with starters in the last three rounds.
We land a Stevie Johnson in the 7th ONE YEAR and everyone forgets the 30 other busts in these slots taken the other 10 years of Modrak drafts.
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He showed flashes of it.
Occasionally he'd explode through a hole for 15+ yards.
The rest of the year was watching a guy who seemed fundamentally confused why he couldn't bounce it to the outside for huge gains. I thought it was worst case scenario, really. People concerned about the pick weren't worried about his speed or cutting ability, but instead worried about whether his skills would translate to the NFL level.
anyone who listens to keiper or puts any stock in anything he says i'm sorry but your lost.
the guy is a draftnic. he I'm sure has over the years gotten some connections with league UNDERLINGS.that being said if anyone thinks they give him any inside info your dreaming because they then would be jeopardizing their own careers,think about it.
however that being said to compare him to even the worst drafting teams in the league is a joke.
i dont care what the guy says or thinks and anyone who thinks he knows more than NFL personal depts just dont get it.
if he knew anything he would be working for an NFL team instead he gets a blog on espn and gets one gig a year on draft day as part of the "entertainment".
everyone is entitled to their opinions all he is telling you is his opinion and believe me he does not know more than the NFL personnel men and the scouts. the scouts throw him a bone now and then now he's the God of how to draft in the NFL,whatever.
The funny thing is that (1) nearly all of this is true AND (2) the Bills would Still have a better roster today if they followed Mel's advice for the past ten years.
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The whole article is worth a read.
Although I actually do see Moats as more of a legit contributor, I can't really argue with the summary. The funniest thing about the defenders of Tom Modrak and the rest of the front office is that the year after the draft they say it's "too early to tell" whether the guys are any good or not. Then, after one or two more years when that line of argument doesn't work because its obvious to all that the players are not cutting it, they switch over to blaming those bad picks on whatever coach or front office guy departed.
Since its 2011, it's too early to tell if Spiller, Troup, and Carrington are going to work out. In 2013, those lousy picks will be blamed on Tom Modrak, Buddy Nix, or Chan Gailey, depending on which of them has been sent packing and made the scapegoat for this.
Buffalo Bills
Summary:
Considering the holes on the roster, Buffalo had to get players that could step in immediately and help. I like C.J. Spiller, but emphasized that I considered him a bit of a luxury pick, considering there are other options in that backfield. His season can only be considered a disappointment. Torell Troup and Arthur Moats saw some time, but is there one guy from this class who looks like an anchor? I questioned Buffalo's plan, and I'm not sure this draft shows it really had one. If it did, that plan went off course early.
Draft grade: C-plus | Current Grade: D-plus
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Not just Modrak. Pretty much every rating service had him as a first round pick.
This is not true; stop repeating it. The people on this board who think "everyone" has basically the same draft board are TOTALLY WRONG. Maybin was a flash in the pan whose draft stock was built on hype. Did you watch him play in college? He could out-run slow Big 10 tackles to the outside for 11 games in 2008. That was IT. From Gregg Easterbrook:
Buffalo's drafting has been awful for a decade, but a specific reason the Bills are so bad this year is that in the 2009 draft, needing a pass-rushing linebacker, they wasted the 11th overall choice on Aaron Maybin, who has yet to record a sack as a pro. Maybin was expected to be a second- or third-round choice; I was sitting with a group of fairly knowledgeable football people on the day of the draft, and they actually laughed when Buffalo chose Maybin so high. To select Maybin, Buffalo passed on Brian Orakpo and Matthews, both pass-rushing linebackers who made the Pro Bowl as rookies and are playing red-hot again this season. On Sunday, Matthews was fantastic and Maybin was invisible. You can't throw high first-round draft choices out the window and expect to win in the NFL. -
Trade him to Cleveland...Dick Jauron picked him...and is now the defensive coord. at the Browns.
Tom Modrak scouted him.
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Troup used to play at 365 or so and lost weight in college to be a 3 down player . He's got a massive lower body and plenty of room to get bigger. An offseason of pro weight and strength training will do wonders. I expect him around 330 lbs of power next year. He's going to be a beast. No NT rook made a whiff of impact this year. Troup got in valuable reps and is learning the game. It took BJ Ragi of the Packers a year or so to learn the pro game and he's doing just fine. I expect the same for Troup.
Troup got thrown around a bit much to be optimistic about him.
He's no goner or anything like that, but he needs to make huge strides in terms of strength and technique to continue to get snaps.
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Looks like Nevada QB Colin Kaepernick is making a big splash in Mobile this week. Already had the Manning brothers on his bandwagon.
I say the Bills draft the best D-Line/LB at #3. And then trade back into the 1st round to take Kaepernick to be our franchise QB. Thoughts?
If you liked JP Losman, you will absolutely love this dude.
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Sick of mock draft threads already, sick of Ngata/Whitner threads, etc. so I thought I'd throw a curveball out there. 1987 - Bills pick Shane Conlan and pass on University of Miami DT Jerome Brown. Could Brown have been the player to put the Bills over the top and bring home a Lombardi trophy? It's an interesting question and it highlights a couple of points from the Super Bowl years. First, while Bill Polian was the greatest GM in Bills history and one of the all-time NFL front office greats, he wasn't infallible. I think he biggest weakness was not bringing in great coaches to match the greatness of the players he brought in. Walt Corey was the best DC they could find? Really? Pretend that they had a competent DC who realizes that it is an incredible waste of talent to keep Bruce Smith as a 3-4 DE and they decide to make a switch to a 4-3. Brown comes in to play next to Smith and causes utter havoc up front. They still make the deal for Cornelius Bennett and have Bennett and Talley on the outside and trade for a veteran MLB to run the show. Potentially, it's one of the best defenses of all time. Instead they stay with a 3-4 and fail to fully utilize Smith's talents and ultimately start Jeff Wright (a perfect penetrating 4-3 DT) as an undersized NT and get run over in four consecutive Super Bowls. What's the lesson that the Bills never seem to learn (or in the case of Ted Washington and Pat Williams - learn then forget)? Job one - get some beef up front and stop the other damn team from running the ball on you.
Damn. If only draft genius Tom Modrak were at the helm in '87.
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Has anyone here ever been in a situation at work where their company was making a terrible business decision? If you push hard and make a clear case, you can often impact that decision. I'm not talking about a janitor at McDonald's advising against bringing back the McRib, I'm talking about somebody relatively high on the food chain. Perhaps Modrak didn't have final say on anything, but that doesn't mean he didn't play a large part in the process.
How about a little personal accountability instead of an endless parade of excuses?
Great post. This Modrak debate always makes me wonder if people on this board have jobs or have ever worked in a hierarchical organization of any kind.
Not having "final say" is equivalent to having zero responsibility in some people's minds.
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Do you think the Bills would have drafted Maybin (no matter who was doing the picking) if he didn't have a first grade rating?
No.
Modrak leaked that he preferred Cushin with the pick.
This came to be understood by Modrak supporters as "Modrak didn't want to draft Maybin."
In reality, Jauron was simply deciding between the next 2 guys on Modrak's draft board.
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This thread is providing some great hilarity with the teeth gnashing and whining by everyone who is on the "blame modrak for everything" train, because they've been proven wrong.
Mark Gaughan putting his name on a press release issued by the team is "proof" that the college scouting director doesn't deserve blame for the failures in college scouting?
Gaughan's only contribution to the article probably is the tid-bit at the end where he suggests that Modrak's contract runs through this year.
Hmm...wonder if Ralph/Littman unwillingness to pay a guy not to work had anything to do with his retention?
Seems to me a lot of the more level-headed folks on the board have been saying this for several years...
The "level-headed folks" who put their faith in an organization that doesn't really seem to mind losing all that much...
I like the thesis that Modrak "sets the draft board" but doesn't deserve blame for the picks made from said board.
Do you really think they're totally disregarding the board so that they'd, say, take Modrak's 78-th ranked player at #11? Or do you think it was more likely Jauron was given "final say" between the #11 through #15 guys on that board?
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So as the man in charge of college scouting in SD, Nix was responsible ("made") for all those "great picks" (i.e., it wasn't Smith, their GM), yet Modrak, who is in charge of college scouting in Buffalo, is NOT reponsible for the Bills awful drafts?
Interesting.
Yep -- when you're determined to defend 11 years of bad decisions, the logical contradictions can pile up pretty quickly.
Can't wait 'till Modrak's contract expires and he gets purged. Then all of OBD's minions will be willing to shift their blame to Modrak as quickly as they jumped on TD and Jauron.
Until then, we'll have to listen to nonsense about how college scouting directors are only responsible for the draft when those drafts are successful.
I'll guarantee you every year if you looked at the top say 30 players on every GM's list, more than half would be the same, another ten would be close and there would likely be one or twoplayers where one team rates him top 10 talent and another GM doesn't have him in the top 100.
This is almost certainly wrong. If every board looked roughly the same, it would be impossible for some teams to have such high success rates in the draft and others to have such low success rates because the player selection process would be essentially random.
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As Ralph acknowledges, "He puts the [draft] board up."
Personally, I'd rather have a team of monkeys putting name placards on the wall in a random order.
I know the success rate wouldn't be any worse.
My sense from the article is that his contract goes through this year's draft and Ralph refused to pay him not to work.
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How did he mishandle the Lynch trade? Unless you are going off the RUMORS that the Saints spread after they got EMBARRASSED by Lynch and were trying to save face?
Green was what he was, the best available veteran OT in FA.
Come on, guy. Really?
Green was replaced by an undrafted rookie free agent (Cordaro Howard) who was so unheralded he didn't even earn an invite to the combine. The result? Immediate upgrade at the position and instant success in a hostile environment (Baltimore) relative to RT performance to that point. Later, this position was filled with other cast-offs and PS players that, again, FAR outperformed Green.
Given these facts -- which, I don't think are in dispute -- how can you continue to believe that Green was the "best available veteran OT in FA"? He would have been lucky at his age to make any other roster in the NFL and has likely played his last football game.
You have taken an absurdly defensive stand on what was obviously a grotesque mistake in free agency. This suggests you either work for the front office, or are oddly subservient to them. Given this perspective, I am not surprised to learn that you don't believe Nix failed to get full value for Lynch. This is rumor. True. But the disaster of the Green signing was not and you're still willing to give the front office the benefit of the doubt that he was the best FA available and therefore the decision to sign him was beyond reproach.
Amazing.
Bills meet w/ Kaepernick
in The Stadium Wall Archives
Posted
If you liked JP Losman, you'll absolutely fall in love with Colin Kaepernick