hondo in seattle

I get the 'due diligence' argument. But not really. Are we doing due diligence on Luck and RGIII? So why do due diligence on Richardson when we know we won't draft him? Even if he fell to #10, we wouldn't take him. Would we? Any chance he falls to the second round??? We don't fly everyone to One Bills Drive. Why Richardson? Smoke screen? Maybe. But would we waste Richardson's time as part of some odd deception plan? Are we considering trading one of our other backs if we have the chance to get Richardson at #10? I understand why we're doing due diligence on these other guys. But Richardson confounds me.

Maybe we want some other team to think we might draft Richardson??? Or maybe - with our new QB coach - we're going to create a cutting-edge offensive attack with 3 RBs in the game at the same time????

Hmmm.... I hadn't thought of that. ????? Another RB?

Yeah, that's kind of weird. Both Peters and Bell were really unpolished coming out of college. We taught them both how to be NFL tackles and they both cashed in with the Eagles.

Per Chris Brown: The Bills just like every other NFL club are doing their due diligence in the final weeks prior to the NFL draft. Part of that process is pre-draft visits as they tie up any remaining loose ends on prospects. Buffalobills.com has learned that a pair of players widely forecast as first round picks and two other top prospects are making such visits to One Bills Drive today. Alabama RB Trent Richardson and Ohio State OT Mike Adams are the headliners with Syracuse DL Chandler Jones and Wisconsin QB Russell Wilson also visiting. http://www.buffalobills.com/news/article-3/Richardson-headlines-top-draft-talent-visiting-Bills/0219468d-f1e1-4923-84c6-4387e1538e3c

I agree it's not a great correlation but I wouldn't say 'there's no correlation.' It's gotta be harder on the coaching staff to make a guy with a 4 wonderlic score understand a defense than a guy with a 40. There's a reason many football teams look at Wonderlic scores. That's because at least some football professionals do see a correlation. Wasn't one of Edwards downfalls as a Defensive Coordinator that he made his defense too complicated? In other words, some of our players weren't bright enough to execute his good ideas quickly and instinctively. If I was a DC, I'd want bright players who could quickly grasp what I was trying to do. If I didn't have those kind of players, I'd have to "dumb down" the defense. Wanny is supposedly dumbing-down our D this year. But how dumb do we want him to go? You want to retain some complexity to make it difficult for opposing offenses to scheme against us. Obviously I'd rather have a super athlete with a 4 wonderlic playing DB than a fair athlete with a 40. But if I had a choice between one super athlete with a 4 and another with a 40, I'd choose the guy with the 40. As for the imperfection of the Wonderlic... I'm surprised nobody's created an intelligence test specifically for football players that looks at the kinds of things football minds need to be good at. As someone commented earlier, playbooks are mostly diagrams. So a football IQ test would measure, amongst other things, an ability to understand diagrams.

Have you ever taken a Wonderlic? You are right when you say it only measures what it measure. Just like combine results. A 40 time doesn't tell you how well someone plays football. It only tells you how fast someone runs the 40. But I wouldn't sign a CB who runs a 5.5. I have taken a Wonderlic, btw, and I would be seriously concerned about any player scoring a 4. Did he even bother to try? Can he read? NFL playbooks aren't that simple (some old one are available online). You have to at least be able to read.

+1 The more weapons, the better. No one lines up on the field as the #2 WR. There's really no such position. There are two - or more - WRs on the field every play and the more good ones, the more likely you are to score. Andre Reed was our #1 in the glory days. But the Bills got a future Hall of Famer to play opposite him. It's on of the reasons the K-Gun was so prolific.

The passing attack was working fine until Fitz broke his ribs and WRs started getting injured and we began playing street FAs. (And Wood went out on IR). The pass rush never worked except during one freak game. On top of that, we were switching to the 4-3 without any capable 4-3 DEs on the team (minus perhaps Kelsay). I think Nix began the off season with the idea that he had to find two DEs either in free agency or the draft.

From Sunday's New York Post: "All of the attention on Tebow has some Jets shaking their heads. Several current Jets ... asked not to be quoted but expressed disbelief at the team bringing in Tebow. ... The idea of a backup quarterback having a press conference is something they can’t wrap their heads around, and they know it’s just the beginning." The article also includes a healthy dollop of incredulity from Damien Woody, who we're now 90 percent certain retired just so he could rip on his former team on a semi-weekly basis. As for The Anonymous Jets, you have to wonder how Tebow will be received when OTAs begin. This is a team that's clearly unsure the direction it's being steered, and Tebow has become the face of that confusion. Welcome to New York, kid.

I'm not in the Ralph-Is-Cheap cult. He has shown a willingness to pay in the past. And I believe Nix when he says that Wilson doesn't handcuff him. I think the difference this year is that there was one FA out there that they desperately wanted. With the Bills going back to the 3-4 and lacking anyone who can pressure the QB, Mario Williams was a perfect fit. To sweeten the attraction, Mario is in the prime of his career and the kind of high-character, team-player that Buddy and Chan prefer. I just don't think they've been enamored with anyone in recent Free Agencies like they were with Mario. To give Mario a bookend, we've now signed Anderson and don't have to worry about finding a DE in the draft. I don't think Nix wants to win anymore than Marv did nor do I think he's getting more cash to play with (other than the cap has gone up). I do think Nix is a better GM than Marv and is doing a better job targeting the right players.

A poll on CBC Sports shows 57% of fans think Sanchez should be the starter and 43% Tebow. Wonder if the Jets locker room will be equally divided.

The Colts and Redskins both need QBs and will almost certainly take Luck and RG3. Miami is also desperate for a QB and could easily take Tannehill. There could easily be 3 QBs off the board by the time we pick. That leaves only 6 teams selecting players we potentially want at #10. Whether it's Blackmon or someone else, we're likely to get someone who will make the Bills appreciably better. I'm excited...

That's why amateurs shouldn't be GMs. According to Kiper and the like, Millen didn't reach. But clearly every other GM in the league was wiser than Millen and made better picks over that time.

Professional scouts here? It may be true. We have professional sports journalists posting here from time to time. I suspect players/ex-players visit TBD occasionally. Why couldn't a scout post? Matt Millen? I mentioned him earlier and you are right. Most GMs and scouts know more than the average fan. Not sure about Matt. Here would be a good test of a fan's ability to draft... During the draft, when ever the Bills have a pick, we could make our own pick. Then evaluate our picks in 3 years. "Sisyphean Bills" is a great nickname by the way, an accurate if depressing one.

Rumor has it that Marv wanted to bring you in as his replacement but the Competition Committee disallowed it citing "unfair advantage."

Some of the draft guru big boards are well-researched and not that bad. Still, if these guys making these publications were so good, why wouldn't a team hire them? Of course, some professional draftniks like Gil Brandt do have NFL experience. But Gil will tell you that he doesn't know college prospects as well now as he used to when he and his staff studied college players full time all year long. I would trust Nix FAR MORE to run our draft than some fan following the big board out of some sports rag.

Spags, good to see you here though you are so very wrong. The two big winners in free agency have been the Broncos and Bills. The Jets made their team worse: (1) Tebow will create a QB controversy on a team that already has a disunited locker room and, (2) you wasted draft picks to achieve #1. Good luck to you anyway. I wouldn't mind seeing the Bills #1 in the AFCE, the Jets #2 with the Pats in the basement.

I recall, as others do, that he was moved to the OL right after preseason. Some speculated that his short tenure on defense was some kind of ruse so other teams wouldn't sign him when we moved him to the practice squad. I'm not sure about that. It was odd, though, that we played him at one position in preseason only to have him on the PS at another position. It will be interesting to see this preseason how this mountainous man has progressed.

I'm with you. Scouts are hired in the first place because they really know this business. After being hired they spend ungodly hours analyzing tape, interviewing coaches, interviewing players, etc. Somebody who does this as a hobby just can't compete. It's both arrogant and insulting for us to think we can do a GM's or scout's job. If any of us were really that smart, some team would pay us. But good luck to anyone here trying to find a job as a scout.

+1 We've seen lots of college names championed here over the years by draftniks. Most of these names have quickly faded into obscurity. Draftniks are like Edgar Cayce. They like to celebrate the one or two predictions they got right and forget the many dozen they whiffed on.

Using a few anecdotes from the top of the draft to prove you can evaluate talent isn't a compelling argument. Any NFL fan can say they were right about this or that pick when the establishment was wrong. Here's a tougher test. Could any of us fans actually act as a GM and run drafts year after year that added more talent to the team than the NFL average? The answer, without question, is no.

+1

I'm smart enough to know I can't evaluate talent better than Nix or any other NFL general manager. Or better than any lowly regional scout, as far as that goes. Yet I still know Matt Millen was a horrendous GM for Detroit. And I can back that opinion up with facts - wins and losses being chief obvious amongst them. So far, Buddy's been producing 6 win seasons. That's not good. But I appreciate the size of the problem he inherited and things seem to be turning in the right direction. I'm excited to see what the Nix accomplishes in this and future years. In my unprofessional opinion, anyone who thinks they can evaluate football talent better than the professionals (Millen exempted) is deluded.

I agree. It did seem uncanny as if he had some kind of preternatural ability to predict where the ball would go. But I think "luck" better describes the reality of it. I'll be thrilled he comes up with 5 INTs. In poker, you might be dealt a flush. That's luck, not skill. And it's not likely to get repeated. Football is partly a game of chance. Lots of statistically improbable things happen every year. On many of Byrd's INTs, he was out of position. But the ball came to him anyway either because of a funny tip or a bad throw. I give him credit for making the catches. Some defenders have hands of concrete. The comparison with Revis is false. Revis is a gifted athlete who blankets receivers. WRs struggle to get open against him and don't usually have productive games. And Revis remains dominant year after year. The comparison with Revis would make sense if Revis allowed receivers to get open but posted good stats anyway because QBs tended to throw poorly and receivers dropped balls when open against Revis. I'll believe in Byrd's ball-hawking skills when he can repeat his rookie stats. But hopefully, he doesn't blow assignments and miss tackles like he did his rookie year. Other than the lack of INTs, I thought he actually played much better last season.