2003Contenders

All good points. The beginning of the end for TD was the day it was formally announced back in 2004 that Gregg's contract would not be extended. It was clear in the press conference that TD was not thrilled with this decision and he went on to lament some of his challenges, directly bad-mouthing some of the Buffalo constituency in the process. He may have been right in what he said that day but many fans never forgave him for it. That 2006 team had boasted a top 3 defense that year but was let down by a declining Bledsoe and lousy offense. As you said, TD did some good things, but Mort shouldn't overlook his blunders either: 1. Going with RJ over Flutie. This one wasn't such a problem, as Flutie was on his last legs -- but in keeping RJ around they operated under the possibility that he could be their QB of the future. Thus, they side-stepped drafting one that year. Gregg maintains that he wanted to draft Brees. I am not sure if I buy that or not. Even if it was true, Brees was a slow starter -- it took him until his 4th year to get cranking, and he would likely have burned out in Buffalo by then. Also, remember that as an expert at ESPN, Donahoe had opined that Flutie was the superior QB to RJ. Even RJ had told his friends that he expected to be the one to get cut. This tells me that someone BESIDES TD made that decision. 2. Drafting Mike Williams. We know now that it was a huge mistake. However, at the time it seemed like a very good pick. McKinnie obviously would have been the better choice, but his demeanor I think had the Bills worried. If you recall, McKinnie pulled a Crabtree and held out with the Vikings for several weeks into the season. Big Mike was actually pretty good as a rookie -- and I had I high hopes for him heading into his sophomore season. Of course, it just went downhill from there. Is TD to blame? Sure. Is this with the full benefit of 20/20 hindsight? You bet. 3. Trading for Bledsoe. After 2002 this looked like a victorious trade, as Bledsoe became the first QB in Buffalo history to pass for over 4000 yards. After the laughable 2001 season, he brought a respectability to the franchise -- and his presence served to inflate the value of Peerless Price, with whom TD was smartly able to steal a 1st rounder from Atlanta. It was impossible to gauge that Bledsoe would fall off the mountain as fast as he did. Based on just 3 years of production, giving up a 1st rounder now makes it a bad trade, but sadly the Bledsoe years (2002-04) were the best that the team has had over the course of this decade from hell. 4. Drafting McGahee when we had other needs. I have to say that there was some flaws in the logic with this pick that extends beyond the obvious fact that the team had other pressing needs, most notably at WR, TE, OL, and DL. The flaw was this: McGahee was coming off a severe knee injury that had caused him to fall toward the end of the 1st round. The Bills spent so much time delving into the nature of the injury and the prospects for a full recovery that they neglected to ask the question about whether or not a HEALTHY McGahee was a worthy first-rounder. He's shown flashes and is still in the league after all these years -- but he probably wasn't worth all the fuss, when a decent OL (Steinbach) or TE (Dallas Clark) were more conventional choices there. 5. Drafting JP Losman. When it is all said and done, this one may go down as the worst mistake that TD made during his entire tenure with the Bills. The Williams pick had been costly, but this one was magnified by the fact that the team gave up a 1, 2 and 5 to get Losman. Moreover, his presence led to (perhaps) a knee jerk release of Bledsoe -- and 3 more years of trying to figure out whether or not JP would ever be the answer. I have always blamed Sam Wyche for this one. Wyche was present at the Eli Manning workout at which Losman supposedly put on a clinic of his own. There was never denying JP's talents -- he just didn't have the total package. How sad is it that a 6-10 record the previous year only netted the 13th pick overall in that year's draft? For comparison's sake, the Bills went 6-10 last year and wound up with the #9 pick in April. Had that happened in 2004, the Bills could (and WOULD) have taken Ben Roethlisberger. 6. Allowing Pat Williams to walk. In terms of TD himself, this is the most unforgivable decision that I believe was all on him. He claimed at the time that he didn't want to empty the bank for a player that was beyond the age of 30 and likely past his prime. Obviously, he was wrong about Williams' expiration date. Worse, the Vikings signed him to a very reasonable deal. I think TD was guilty of playing hardball in this situation and ultimately put off Williams and his agent. That is the same sort of tactics that we are seeing with AJ Smith out is San Diego. 7. Coaching hires. First and foremost, we will never know what limitations were placed on TD by Ralph, who is notorious for not wanting to invest big money on a head coach. Would the Bills have been better off with Gregg at the helm for another few years? Maybe. He certainly had his shortcomings, and maybe his fate is to be a fantastic DC but not a good HC. Mularkey looked like a good find in 2004, but when someone imposed Losman on him in 2005, things went south in a hurry. And, when the infamous octogenarians forced him to fire his assistants, he wound up quitting himself. And we wonder why the team had such a hard time finding someone willing to be the new Bills head coach this year!

Why all the criticism? Brown was one of the last cuts, and the Bills knew that no other NFL team would be interested in picking him up and adding him to their 53 man roster at that point. (Remember all the silly paranoia around here that the Bills shouldn't "risk" letting him pass through waivers to add him to the PS?) The only real threat was that some other team would sign him to THEIR practice squad, which just meant that the Bills would be able to sign sign him to the active roster if they ever wanted to (like they did with Brohm and Meredith last year).

I wish I knew. If I were a mad scientist and could "create" the perfect QB, he would have all of the following characteristics: Leadership, ability to make quick decisions and go with them, football intelligence (i.e. ability to read a defense, know the playbook, adjust on the fly, etc), sixth sense when dealing with impending danger, and naturally the physical skills to get the job done (arm strength, mobility, accuracy). Of all the post-Kelly QBs that have paraded through Buffalo, the two most successful were Flutie and Bledsoe, two guys who were groomed elsewhere. I think the decision makers at OBD spent too much time focusing on the physical skills of the younger guys (RJ, JP and Trent) as none of them possessed the other accompanying skills. Sometimes i think we as fans fall into this same trap, eliminating guys from consideration because we question their arm strength, for example. Meanwhile, guys like Drew Brees and Chad Pennington were able to take their teams far into the playoffs whereas guys like RJ and JP are not even in the league anymore. I am not sure that there ever was an NFL QB with a stronger arm than JaMarcus Russell. Where is he now? Ideally, you want a guy that can make all the NFL throws and cut through the Lake Erie winds come December -- but these traits are secondary to the skills, smarts, guts, and instincts it takes to play the most difficult position in all of professional sports. For those that watch more college football than I do, is there a QB who will be coming out next April that fits that bill?

I think I understand your sentiment. When proper decisions are made, the draft can be a very useful tool in bringing in new talent that can sometimes make an immediate and sustained impact. Alas, when the wrong decisions are made, especially with early round picks, it can set the franchise back for years. I wish I knew who was calling the shots at OBD in terms of draft picks. These guys keep making the same errors over and over again, defying conventional wisdom to roll the dice with picks that are questionable. This isn't even a matter of hindsight being 20/20 (a la passing on Tom Brady who fell to the 6th round of the 2000 draft), as history has shown that the Bills would have been better off drafting who the draftniks thought they should. This goes back over several regimes -- even back to Butler who gave us Erik Flowers as a parting gift back in 2000. I am hoping that Nix and Gailey may have better sense.

You are not the only one. In fact, I mentioned this in another post too. If we noticed it, surely some of the other players and coaches had to have also.

It was odd. For awhile there yesterday, I thought that Edwards didn't even dress for the game. I didn't see him anywhere on the sidelines, and in the clips when Fitz was talking to the coaches or looking at pictures, Brohm was there but Edwards was nowhere to be found. Then, after the first interception in the 4th quarter, Trent started making his presence felt. Did anyone else notice this?

My hunch is that Gailey is giving each RB a "start" early in the season. In Week 1 it was Spiller, last week Lynch. So this week it will be Jackson. That actually makes some sense, as Jackson is one of the few Buffalo Bills who has performed well against the Pats.

Gailey's main strength as a coach in the past was that he was innovative in being able to create tailor-made systems to best fit the personnel on hand. Professional coaches like Gailey are a special breed. They are confident in their abilities to a fault. I suspect that Gailey saw the game film on Edwards -- but rather than viewing him as a hopeless cause, thought to himself, "I am the guy smart enough to devise a scheme that suits Trent's unique skill set." He also saw a guy who, by the end of last year had no confidence left. Trent is a bright guy, capable of talking the talk. Under Gailey's off-season tutelage he said all the right things and appeared to regain his confidence after the first preseason game (against Washington) disaster. From a talent perspective, he also has all the goods. Despite a faction of "fans" on this board who would say otherwise, Trent does not have a noodle for an arm. It is likely that Trent DID perform the best of the 3 QBs in training camp and displayed the greatest skillset, when live bullets were not flying. After two weeks of live action, Gailey came to the astute conclusion that Edwards just doesn't have "it". Regardless of whatever scheme he could cook up -- and given the current impossibility of improving the supporting cast, including the OL -- Gailey came to realize that there was likely nothing he could do to hide the fact that Trent Edwards simply lacks the natural instincts and intangible qualities to play QB in the NFL. Fitzpatrick DOES have these traits -- and Gailey believes that he can better compensate for Fitzpatrick's lack of talent than he can for Trent's lack of instincts and mental toughness.

Trent actually looked pretty decent in the Redskin game up until the INT. After that, not so much. That is where Gailey needs to focus on Trent most is on his psyche: work with him to better overcome adversity and not go into a shell when bad things happen.

I suspect that he may not be as good of an NFL prospect as many of you are suggesting. If he were, I honestly believe that he would be on some NFL team's roster right now.

It is systemic of what I have said all along, which is that the non-scouts, including the coaches (and Jauron in particular) had too much say in what happened with the draft. The fact that the team struck out so many times with 1st and 2nd round picks is highly indicative of this fact, since the decision makers were more apt to leave the late round decisions, where lesser known players could be had, to the scouts. Conversely, it seems that we have had much better luck with our late round picks. Perhaps that is a reprieve for Donahoe, whom I believe would be gone by now if Nix didn't believe he was good at what he does. Also, I believe that Jauron adhered to the philosophy that "younger is better". Hence, his fetish with first round underclassmen. Nix and Gailey appear to have dismissed that philosophy right off the bat.

A few random thoughts... 1. Who says that Nix didn't make a spirited play for Brown? Isn't it possible -- if not likely -- that Brown told the Bills that he wasn't interested? If so, that may not even be such a slight on the Bills, as everyone in the NFL knows that you got to Washington to get paid. 2. Not to under-appreciate the value of a good, young LT... but the Bills had a Pro Bowler at the position in 2 of the last 3 years -- and the offense was STILL terrible. 3. I REALLY do get a sense that the current regime has faith in Bell/Meredith to man the LT position. That is, I don't think that they are just blowing smoke when they go on and on about how much they like these guys. The $64,000 question, of course, is: Are they correct in their assessment?

Yea, I don't know much about the guy, but he was actually NOT incorrect about the Cowher thing. What he said was: 1. Cowher had talked to the Bills about the coaching job 2. Cowher had asked around about the current and future ownership situation So he never predicted that the Bills would hire Cowher just that they had, in fact, spoken to him. The excitement centered around the fact that national guys like Schefter were saying that Cowher wouldn't even give the Bills the time of day. While it may be true that Cowher never seriously considered Buffalo as a landing spot, he did at least talk to the team and even made some recommendations for them (including suggesting Chan Gailey).

Except that the "disgraceful 2003 team" actually boasted a top 5 defense of which Schobel played an integral part. The disgrace that year was almost exclusively on the offensive side of the ball (after the first two games), when Bledsoe's decline became clear, and Gilbride forgot about the running game.

Good point. Remember also, however, that the Bills once stashed Jason Peters on their Practice Squad as well -- and left him unprotected for a considerable period of time.

Actually, going back to last season's draft, the reason that Meredith fell as far as he did was a perceived notion that he was a troublemaker -- and potential locker room poison. There were rumors that his coaches at SC gave a not-so-glaring review of him when privately questioned by various NFL scouts heading into the draft. At least one publication referred to him as a "locker room lawyer". Now, I haven't heard anything from either Green Bay or Buffalo about him being anything but a stand-up guy. So, who knows? Perhaps he had a personal conflict with one of his coaches at SC that led to a lot of this. If so, maybe the character assassination helped allow the Bills to acquire a talented young player at a position of need.

Excellent points. Moreover, all of those teams were playoff teams as well.

I think the overall objective of this draft was to fortify the trenches on both sides of the ball. By taking Spiller with the #9 pick, it pretty much sealed that the Bills were going to go OL/DL with the next couple of picks. Had they taken an OL with that pick instead of Spiller, I believe that Clausen would have been a much more serious possibility at 41.

The one thing I will say is that one year's 2nd round pick, for example, doesn't necessarily compare to another year's. For whatever reason teams shied away from QBs this year, not just because this year's class was viewed as weak. For example, how much difference was there between Sanchez's rating when he came out last year versus Clausen's this year? No much. Yet Sanchez was a top 5 pick, and Clausen fell to the end of the 2nd round. FWIW, many draftniks had Levi Brown rated as a 3rd rounder. Is it a long shot for him to make the team -- let alone ever become a starter? Yes, of course. But you just never know.

Actually, the story I always heard was that Flutie only signed with the Generals AFTER the Bills made it clear to him and his agent that he wouldn't be drafted with the #1 overall pick. As for the reasoning behind the Bills doing what they did... compare it to this year with Tebow. Like Tebow, Flutie already had a fanatical following, so acquiring him would have generated additional ticket and jersey sales. However, the "football" people realized that Bruce was the correct choice. In the final analysis someone convinced Ralph to make the smart football decision.

I remember the alleged episode well. It was opening day 1994, when (in a precursor to the team's first losing season since 1987) the Bills surprisingly fell to the Jets at home. The offense couldn't get anything going against Pete Carrol's Jets, and Thurman was held in check all day long. As he was leaving the stadium he was approached by a little kid for an autograph, who asked Thurman why he had played so poorly. Thurman's alleged response was, "Because I was up f'ing your mother all night!"

With the sorry strength and conditioning staff that watched the Bills entire OL deplete last year, who's to say that Oher wouldn't have likewise fallen victim to the injury bug. That is about the best I can do in terms of playing devil's advocate, as Oher definitely should have been the choice. Sad that the Bills so often buck conventional wisdom and do things that baffle us all. By the same token, I don't want to dismiss Maybin just yet. After year one, the Redskins certainly look to be the winners in the Orakpo/Maybin sweepstakes. But that is after just a single year. Remember also that Maybin was a holdout, who missed virtually all of training camp last year. (Don't get me started on the need for slotting rookie salaries.) Maybin does have some skills -- as well as a freakish first step that can't be taught. The trouble is that last year, that quick jump was a non-factor as savvy offensive linemen just pushed him out of the play. It will be interesting to see how he performs this year given a full off-season and new coaching staff.

Before finally being handed the reigns in 2008, Aaron Rodgers had that same look. It takes some guys a few years to put it all together, especially in a somewhat complicated offense like the Packers run. Chan's offense figures to be far less complicated -- remember that he devised a system which boy genius Kordell Stewart actually ran effectively back in Pittsburgh.

I suspect that the question was presented more to gauge Bryant's emotional reaction rather than his actual verbal response. As has been said, his mom's background has little relevancy and Ireland was trying to see how Bryant would respond when provoked. The reaction you suggest certainly would have disqualified Bryant from being drafted by the Dolphins. I recall that Matt Stafford said last year that one of the teams he interviewed with kept pressing him about his parents' having divorced, trying to see if he would allow the questioning to get under his skin. The way these kids are dissected by the GMs and scouts is crazy, and I suspect that there are many other teams that use these same tactics.

I will have to say that I am actually pretty excited about the team going into training camp with an open competition for the starting job. I agree with many on here's take of Fitz. He is the one guy whose fate is pretty much sealed as he's shown that he isn't a bad QB2 option. That would leave the real open competition for the starting job up to Edwards and Brohm. We will find out quickly whether Brohm's phase out in Green Bay was a maturity issue (a privileged kid not being able to handle competition, especially when the job he was fighting for was QB2 behind Rodgers) or if it was due to a lack of skill/talent. My money is on the former -- and, if so, I hope he welcomes the true open competition.