akm0404

Our biggest need is the same as every other team that doesn't have one: 1-10: Elite-level Quarterback Play Everything else is almost irrelevant. Get elite-level quarterback play and you contend for a decade. Don't, and you are the Bills, trying to rebuild back to 7-9.

Quarterbacks aren't important in the NFL. You can _EASILY_ get to 7-9 with a journeyman bottom-third-of-the-league guy. We need to draft the real important players, like long snappers and kick holders.

Roger Goodell is working hard to ruin the NFL with his incessant tinkering with the rules. He takes the helm of the greatest, most perfect sport ever, and in short order he has fudged around with just about everything. Sweet! Now nobody knows what a catch is, we play regular season games in multiple foreign countries, the personal conduct policy is applied using a dart board, defensive players have no clue how to hit legally and should probably just stop trying, and we have an overtime rule that has never been used, and when it happens, will be a total crapshoot figure-it-out-as-we-go debacle. Thanks Rog! Oh yeah, let's move to an 82 game schedule. Other leagues do that, and just think of all the $$$$$$$$$!

Are you serious? Goodell stepped in and started radically changing the fabric of the game. I feel that he is driven by ego, and his rule changes have done nothing but muddy the waters and weaken the product. He alienated the players with his little speaking tour last year, and his at-a-whim personal conduct penalties are a joke. He is pushing to blow out the season to 18 games, which will only water down the product and further ruin the ability to statistically compare performances over the years. Knee-jerk rule changes are now the norm, such that nobody knows what is a catch, what is a legal hit, and how might a game be decided in overtime in the playoffs (you have to love a rule that was put in place because of one game, and then has never been used - that'll be fun the first time teams get to figure that gem out). Down with Goodell. Edit: Oh yeah, let's play games in Europe. That's awesome and fair. People love those games. Not.

I didn't say that there were. I was simply explaining why those of us who really follow NFL football aren't satisfied with Ryan Fitzpatrick and recognize that the only true way to resurrect the franchise is to hit on a elite-level quarterback. Is it easy? No. Is it a guarantee that drafting a qb high yields an elite-level player? No. Does that mean that the Bills should be scared to try? No.

The people who are obsessed with drafting a quarterback early in the NFL draft are those that recognize the fact that winning franchises in the NFL have an exclusive stranglehold on the best players at the most important position in professional sports. With a mediocre-to-below-average quarterback, you hope for a freak playoff run between years battling toward 7-9. With an elite quarterback, you have a tantrum the one year out if 10 that you actually MISS the playoffs. The difference is obvious to those of us who haven't lowered our standards.

No. S: (adj) kosher, cosher (conforming to dietary laws) "kosher meat"; "a kosher kitchen" S: (adj) kosher (proper or legitimate)

Ahh the old and tired "they should feel lucky to make so much money playing a game" line. It is a business with employees who have collective bargaining rights. The business makes a ton of money off of the efforts of it's employees. Both are entitled to compensation. This isn't a game of tag on the playground. The players don't view their careers, with their insanely short duration, as some hobby. This is their livelihood. Just because you think it's a hobby and you are jealous of their riches, leave that out of a big-boy analysis of the business climate and the legal ramifications of this situation.

Are you suggesting that Buffalo fans would embrace a black quarterback? I predict that if the Bills drafted Newton, there would be a large number of folks highly eager to call him JaMarcus Russell and hunt for ways to label him as lazy and thuggish. I believe the treatment he'd receive would be much different than if the Bills drafted Gabbert. Just my opinion from following the team and it's fans my whole life.

QB 40 times matter for absolutely nothing, unless you are a "scrambling quarterback". Mallet is not. Nobody will care, even a little bit, and he'll still be a mid-first round pick. I bet Peyton Manning runs a 40-yard dash at something close to that, and nobody says he can't survive in the NFL.

The figures that NaPolian is referencing do not merely include player salaries. Ralph spends more than average on the team, he just does it poorly.

Sad to say and I've said it before but this thread helps confirm it: the city of Buffalo is not yet ready for a black quarterback. I'd bet any amount of money that this has come up in internal draft discussions, and I suspect that it'll keep the Bills from drafting Newton. Fan perception is very important to the health of this franchise, and frankly, there is still too much racism in Buffalo for the team to rile everyone up.

What about red-headed quarterbacks? Just thinking fast, I can't really think of any that have won Super Bowls. Long-haired quarterbacks? They'd have to prove it, because I mean, there'd be no reason to think they'd be any good without SEEING it first, and getting some RINGS. Face it bro, u racist.

*fingers crossed that we'll get a reply from Mr. Enlightened with regard to just how exactly them blacks don't cut it*

Oh sweet, another embarrassing thread by bitter, sour-grapes Bills fans. Get over it. They have been the better franchise for the last 10 years. It makes you look bitter and small to claim cheat whenever someone puts it in your mouth.

The Bills are always toward the middle of the pack in spending, so the notion that Ralph is "cheap" has always been misguided. The problem isn't that he'll spend money, it's that he won't pay the good money for top-notch NFL front office personnel. He doesn't know them, and if he does and they do well, he'll have an ego battle with them and let them go.

Oh boy, here we go. Figured it wouldn't take too long before one of the "thinly veiled" crowd would get loose. When you say "can't cut it", what exactly do you mean? You realize Mike Vick received the most Pro Bowl votes, and was in contention for the NFL MVP Award, right? Did you see Josh Freeman in Tampa take what was widely regarded as the worst team in the NFL to double-digit wins this season? So, I guess if "can't cut it" doesn't mean win a Super Bowl, make the Pro Bowl, turn a franchise around, or be the most electrifying player in the league, you're 100% right.

Yes, many folks of African or Pacific Island descent are, on average, more physically gifted than the average Caucasian of European descent. This isn't racist, it is merely an evolutionary fact. Caucasians of European descent tend to be more genetically distant from those in their ancestry that based their survival on physical traits. Count the number of generations that a population has been removed from natural selection based on physical traits, and you'll see why, currently, these groups of people tend to excel in athletics. As the world changes and modernizes, even these more remote areas will shift their evolutionary focus, and over time, these performance gaps will be trivialized (over periods of a hundred years or more). But, for now, they are very real. In America, persons of African descent are gaining traction across the athletic landscape. Heck, only 50 or 60 years ago, black athletes were a rarity in professional sports. To say that the NFL quarterback is going to be the "one last" athletic position that black athletes will not dominate is foolish. In golf, swimming, hockey, lacrosse, etc. the numbers of black participants is increasing much more quickly than their evolutionary edge will continue to subside. If you think that the NFL will not feature predominantly black quarterbacks in a matter or another generation, I think you are foolish. Much as their athletic advantage (again, speaking in terms of population averages) is an inherent trait governed by evolutionary science, the notion of the black athlete's intellectual disadvantage is also real, just not in the same way. Due to socio-economic factors, many black Americans do experience roadblocks that keep them from achieving the same level of intellectual success that their white counterparts enjoy. This has forged a culture that values other traits more highly, and is counter-productive to the intellectual success of their population. But make no mistake, this gap is shrinking and will continue to shrink at a MUCH faster rate than the evolutionary gap in physical performance. Executive Summary: Get used to people of African or Pacific Island descent dominating all sports for a long time to come, as their access to high-level athletic training and better educational opportunities out-paces the reduction of their evolutionary "edge" as the world continues to modernize. This includes NFL quarterbacks, kickers, and punters - Within the next 20 years I'd expect these positions to see the same relative level of racial composition.

A lot of you guys are missing the point, looking at things like Roethlisberger's Super Bowl stats and the argument as to whether winning championships elevated quarterbacks like Elway and Aikman. The bottom line is, and I really feel like it is unarguable, that having an elite-level quarterback on your team makes it a relevant championship contender for a decade. When a team has an elite quarterback, they are the face of the franchise and usually stay with their team through the balance of their career. Teams place a huge priority on keeping an elite quarterback, but yet you'll often see elite pass rushers changing teams frequently (Peppers, Allen, etc.). Why do you think that is? Having an elite-level quarterback is every NFL team's #1 priority. Without one, you scratch and claw for a rare playoff appearance and maybe just maybe a freak Super Bowl run. With one, you are almost penciled into the playoffs year after year, and get legitimate looks at having a parade or two. Mark my words - The Bills futility will only finally end when they get elite-level play from a solidified QB position. Flounder around with 300 pounders on either side of the ball all you want, but it only keeps the team in neutral.

No. Elite-level play from quarterbacks allows teams to compete for championships for a decade. Or, you can try to build a once-a-generation defense and do it that way. This isn't the 60s anymore.

Don't see this happening (Heyward in Rd2 and Sturdivant in Rd3 could both easily be gone), but what a boon for our team that would be.

No offense, but your logic is pretty dumb. If I steal the diamond out of your wife's engagement ring and pulverize it to bits, I'd think you'd have the right to be upset over the destruction of a sentimental and valuable piece of your property. But hey, they are using explosives in diamond mines every day, blowing up lots of other diamonds. Get over it, sap.

LOL, we all agree that elite quarterbacks take 3 years to blossom, but we're falling all over ourselves to WAIT LONGER to start the clock. Sure, they'll probably bust, but being paralyzed by fear rarely is the best option.

All of the comparisons to Jamarcus Russel forget one simple fact: If there is football next year, it'll be played with a rookie wage scale. What does that mean? Well, for one, you won't have to worry about guys getting that huge first contract, then eating themselves out of the league. The big money will come from contract #2, so that mitigates a lot of the risk of drafting someone like Newton #3. Further, the wage scale will dictate that highly drafted quarterbacks will not command the insane wage premium that they had in the past, making them an even riskier proposition. The questions that we have for Newton are legitimate. We don't know about his "football IQ" or his work ethic. I don't really see any reason to believe that he doesn't have a strong football IQ or work ethic, based on his success at the highest level of college football. Unfortunately, I feel that a lot of people who automatically assume he is dumb and lazy are falling back on thinly veiled racial stereotypes, and that is pretty gross. When I think about who I'd like the Bills to draft, for me, it comes down to the potential impact to the franchise. Right now, we are at a crossroads. The team has been spinning its wheels since Jim Kelly was carted off the field that fateful day, and in my opinion, we'll never see another sustained run of success without elite-level quarterback play. For me, I see the teams that are perennial championship contenders having one thing almost universally in common - elite quarterbacks. Drafting a player like Nick Fairley, if he turns out to be an elite player, would certainly help the team. I just can't imagine that having a best-case-scenario Warren Sapp caliber player provides the same level of impact that an elite level quarterback would. If you hit on a quarterback, you'll be contending for championships within 3 years. If you hit on a 300+ pound lineman, on either side of the ball, you'll be contending for a championship 3 years after you get your quarterback. Just my opinion.

You lost all of your credibility there, sir. Please leave the vocal evaluation to the experts. Weird how you say that the song should be sung as written, but then use the Whitney Houston version as an example. You do know she used her own arrangement there, right?