hondo in seattle

The media is also reporting that both the Bills and Jets are trying to trade down. Apparently neither club is all that enamored with Nassib after all. Or maybe the football media just doesn't actually know what NFL teams are up to.

You make a good point. But do you really think they openly reveal everything to Chris? I bet they err on the side of safety, concerned that something may leak that they don't want leaked. I would think a lot of information at OBD is shared on a need-to-know basis only.

I don't think Chris is as informed as many think he is. Yeah, he works at OBD and hears lots of things we never will. But the personnel and coaching staffs know Chris talks with the public. So I think (1) sometimes they tell him stuff they want to reach the public domain, (2) sometimes they keep secrets from him, and (3) sometimes they might even feed him misinformation, particularly around draft time.

With "as many holes as we have," do you really think OBD will prioritize taking a TE and then take a RB in the 4th?

We haven't heard anything for a while. Did Karlos come and leave without a contract? Did we not make an offer? Or offer too little? Does he just not like Buffalo?

Bandit, great job! Cogent, persuasive 2-3 sentences justifying your prediction for each team. You should publish this. It will be interesting Thursday night to compare your accuracy versus Kiper, McShay, Mayock, etc.

I listen to the "experts" because they know way more than I do. Kiper, McShay, et al do a lot of film study and probably talk to a lot of scouts and coaches. Some of the draft gurus are actually former NFL scouts and GMs. But NFL franchises have entire scouting departments. And the resources of the franchise allow them to edit video, tabulate statistics, talk to people, etc. in a way that Kiper and the boys can't match. I actually think Kipe would be a good regional scout if his ego didn't get in the way of carrying out someone else's program. But I doubt if many take what he says as gospel. Projecting the NFL success of college players is tricky business and going by Kiper's big board, I don't know if his success rate would have been better than any NFL GM's except for maybe Matt Millen's.

With all their other needs, I don't really expect them to draft a TE with one of their 6 picks. I do think Safety is a possibility, especially considering this draft is supposed to be strong in Safeties.

Kelly, if you were actually smarter than Kiper, you'd be making multi millions working for the media. Kiper is correct on about half of his predictions of the first half of the first round. His success rate falls precipitously after that. This doesn't sound great but predicting what 32 GMs will do is difficult and most media draft gurus are right even more infrequently than Kipe.

I mostly agree... and will add that the Bills Offensive Line usually didn't get much of a push on 3rd and short situations. It was concerning. And now we've lost Levitre.

So how to pass effectively? Give your QB time to throw. How to stop the opponent from passing effectively? Don't give him time to throw. The trenches still matter. It took me a long time to acknowledge Brady was a great QB because every time I watched the Pats play, Brady had all freaking day to throw the ball. Almost any NFL QB will look good when he has enough time to crochet a sweater back there.

I think analytics do account for most of these qualities to a certain extent. A QB's stats wouldn't be as good if he wasn't good at these. But, to support your argument, metrics can't measure leadership. Nor do they fully account for how much the QB's stats benefit from the coach's scheme.

I tend to agree with the OP. To exaggerate the choice we face a little bit, I'd rather have a HOF lineman than a long-shot QB. We fans tend to believe that games are won by the strong arms of their QBs. And certainly there are some stats to back up this argument. And since we haven't had a good QB in a such a long time, we want to see the Bills draft the best QB available this year. But there's also a lot of truth still in the old adage that games are won in the trenches. A good OL makes both your RBs and QBs more productive, not to mention improving the likelihood your QB will last an entire season. We should have picked a QB in the first round last year. I don't know about this year. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. This year life is giving us Big Uglies.

Thanks for the post. Realistically, I'm not expecting much from the Bills this year. But it's Spring and time to dream! It's good here some optimism from camp.

Some intel on Brown http://www.ninersnation.com/2012/6/1/3057213/49ers-udfas-kourtnei-browns-physique-resembles-aldon-smith

This is a fair argument. Nix hired Gailey. Gailey hired Wanny. The leader owns all the accountability. Let's see if Nix redeems himself by hiring Marrone who in turn hired Pettine.

I remember when some here wanted Brohm to be our starting quarterback. Let's see if he can beat out Burris for the job in Hamilton.

waiting for Easley = waiting for Godot

I spent all of last season moaning over Wanny's ineptitude and wondering "What if...?" We'll find out the "What if" this season, though with a slightly different cast of characters. So far, we've lost more defensive players than we've gained. If Pettine gets more from this D than Wanny - and I expect he will - we'll know Wanny deserves the expletives cast his way.

I wore my Bills gear to a Bills-Dolphins game in Miami - the Bills last playoff win. There were 10,000 or more Bills fans there and we were heckled and booed and flipped off a lot. Great fun! I also wore Bills gear to a couple 49er games where I was mostly ignored. We won one of those games handily and as 49er fans left in disgust in the 4th quarter, I could proudly see more blue in the stands than red.

Mostly agree. Trading down might make sense to the Bills but trading up needs to make sense to someone else. Most draft gurus seem to think the top of the draft class just isn't that special this year. So, generally speaking, teams won't offer a lot to trade up. We need to hope some GM has his heart set on someone still available at #8.

I don't necessarily disagree but here's what scares me. Even first round QBs only have maybe a 50-50 probability of becoming franchise QBs. The odds for QBs - as all positions - fall as you go deeper in the draft. Normally, your best starters are found in the first 3 rounds. We'll take a QB with one of those picks and more than likely pick the wrong one. So one of our top 3 picks will be wasted, leaving us with only two solid (hopefully) picks in the first three rounds. We have more than 2 needs to fill in the draft and the later picks just aren't likely to give us much.

I get where you're coming from, but completing less than a quarter of his 15+ yard passes is scary.

We already got better on D by firing Wanny and hiring Pettine.

At #8, we ought to find a future HOFer or near HOFer. I'd rather get a HOF guard than swing and miss at a QB. I'd rather go with probabilities than position.