AKC

I'm in. For a guy like WRamius- who's made a career of calling everybody he disagrees with on this board an idiot or moron, to suggest his whining for Limas Sweed at 11 and insistence on "all the #1 quality WRs" in the draft was somehow a "correct prediction"are among the most clearly contradicted opinions ever posted on TSW- not to mention total nonsense. But it is humorous to see him exposed as a Draft know-nothing. It became pretty clear before the draft how loose a grip he had on winning draft strategy- "Picking someone at #11 when the dumbass "experts" say they shouldnt go until 17-18 isnt a "reach" WRamius, April 23, 2008

As a devoted WRetard, it's no surpise you're still unable to grasp the clear patterns of drafting done by good ball clubs versus bad. Maybe the Bonehead Post of the Year so far on TSW: "Just because there is no clear cut #1 does NOT mean that the draft is WR weak. There are quite a handful of WRs that will go in the 1st and second rounds." WRamius, April 24th, 2008

Hey GGG- great to meet you- a wise and studied crowd no doubt, sorry you missed the "After" party. We'll get you some photos of it ;-) CU during the season. Oddly, we didn't have to remove anyone for cheering a WR pick at 11- or 15- or even 31! The crowd was universally in tune with the fact that only someone who ignored all the evidence offered on TSW before the draft would insist on taking a WR at 11 in 2008.

And made ourselves contenders immediately. Instead we drafted "skill" players early at a much higher priority than the best teams do, and sat under .500. In 2008 if Marcus Stroud has a season like his last 2, we'll once again be a league laughingstock against the run and all the freaking skill players we "had to have" will be rendered moot by their lack of time on the field.

It's popularly accepted that acknowledgement is the first step towards recovery. Good luck along the way.

Mayock is as good as you get on the media side- but many of the mocks still showed that clearly the class of WRs was poor this year at the top. It was hardly a secret that it would have been throwing a pick away to draft a WR at 11, but the record of those who were "insisting" on it as a "need" pick on this board is comprehensive. It's typical- the most reasonable voices drowned out by the hysterical.

Across the board, 2008 Mock Drafts proved no more reliable than 50% of know-nothings on this board insisting on a WR with our first pick. On the other hand, teams did a whole heck-of-a-lot better than media/fans because they pay attention to things like the track record of positions, the draft strategy of opponents, etc. Not a single NFL team was stupid enough to draft a 2nd round quality WR with their first pick. The nearly total disconnect between the idiots who write up mock drafts and the not-so-confusing draft day actions of the best organizations in the league offer some easy rules to follow. Among those is to pull the lever if you have quality at TE on your draft board at the top of the draft. There's other rules- like the 20% differential of the best teams that favors drafting Defense over Offense in the first two rounds. Much of this is easy enough to see, but apparently the mock draft folks are as inept as casual fans in putting 2+2 together when it comes to the way a good organization handles themselves on day one and beyond.

A top TE from the draft is definitely one point of separation between us and the best teams in the league. The problem with opening the subject now is that the same idiots who demanded pre-draft this year that we reach for a WR with the 11 pick will be on some other bonehead bandwagon because they simply can't grasp the clear patterns the best teams use to get to and stay on top.

Preseason "Power Rankings" carry all the relevance of the idiotic "mock drafts" that had us taking a WR with the 11th pick.

Not too big a problem for 70% of their "base"- the bandwagon. That seems to include 80% of our *s Trolls here like HollyweirdDonahoe who bought his first *s gear in 2003. Oddly, there's some evidence he might have been a Giant's fan last time around ;-)

Yes, I see on my calendar that it's time for the annual bout of optimism. Too bad that optimism requires bad rewrites of the time good players spent in Buffalo. We were just forced to commit the 11th pick in the draft to replace that lump of coal. Not to mention we have no idea whether this new lump shines up anywhere near as nice as the last one did.

Look less like the poll was loaded than those screaming for a WR with the 11 pick were in the weeks leading up to the draft!

Correctly applied, a "dynasty" would only refer to a team who had won under successive coaching staffs and/or successive owners. The term is not appropriate where the coaching staff/owners are unchanged. The Cowboys could make the claim because the coaching staff changed, but the *s are not a dynasty.

One should never allow precision to become confused by your own biases.

How about if I name 27 players that NFL front offices feel are better than any of the WRs in the draft? Heck, I'm willing to go out on a limb here and give you 32!

lol?

Thank god for Adam's choice though; I've apparently been misinformed that I was what I ate. I'm much more comfortable knowing I am what I are. I know Popeye was a proponent of a very similar philosophy, and he's a trustworthy fellow.

The only type of player in the draft who might have immediately raised our status to contender was gone 4 spots before we picked. After studying the way the best teams have contemporarily been drafting, and without a sure hit 2 role TE there to go to, the best play for us is probably going to historically be the one we went with. Our management didn't fail us by taking a 2nd round WR at 11, and even thyough I think the defense we're playing right now doesn't have to have as good a CB as we appear to have drafted, the reality is you have to work with the players on the board and we did. I mentioned to a few of the TSW alumni as the draft started that seeing us take a CB would probably be the best move we could make, and I haven't changed my feelings on that. We're razor thin at what I believe is the most important position in football today- but there are few high caliber prospects at the critical spot and in this draft onely one- and he wasn't going to get to us. We know that UDFA are nearly as likely to end up in our starting lineup as 5+ rounders, so the positional side later on in the draft seems less important. Like I said earlier- we got a little better in FA and we got a little better in the draft. With the weaker schedule, and assuming Stroud is healthy enough to start at least 11 or 12 games, we should expect an improvement in the win column in 2008. The downside is that if Stroud has trouble and ends up with a limited contribution, we'll be an embarrassing last in the AFC East and the team everyone in the league will want to play- and run on.

I'd added a study to the board that showed CB as a real priority of the best teams in the league. I've also posted on a number of occcasions that I feel our 22007 CB chart was among the worst in the NFL. After Ellis was drafted the reality for us this year was to follow the trends of the best teams and bring in the best CB- It was not the pick that immediately makes us a force to contend with, but it was the best situation for us on this draft day and this draft class. As the draft went on, the other picks will become more clear- but the first pick this year in taking a cover guy based upon the board we were looking at has a good chance to turn out to be hard to argue in the future. The most important thing that happened was that the team didn't make an error that would have cost us for many years by using that first round pick on a second round talent WR, and in doing so leave a #11 talent CB out there for someone behind us to grab.

With the caveat that if the past 2 seasons worth of injury issues continue to hinder Marcus Stroud's contribution, we'll be even softer against the run than we were last year and we'll be awful as defense and a team. The Jag D required he play a higher % of downs than he will with us, and hopefully that in and of itself helps him to get back towards his play in 2004, his last good season. We did have one of the worst rosters of CBs in the league last year, and help at the top is going to help other areas of the D- giving our lines time to pressure the QB will go a long way in helping the pass D improve on third downs. Our run D on first and second though is still substantially dependent on the health of one player.

It remains a hole- and I think there's plenty of evidence that we won't get to the top before we add a talented TE- but we would not be realistic expecting to be a dangerous playoff team this year. Overall I'd say that #1 we didn't fall for making the terrible error that drafting a #11 WR would have been, and we will improve our third down defense by sitting down the worst of our 07 corners one way or another on that crucial down. Help at CB will end up giving our pass rush package that extra half second that disrupts the opposition, and that leaves us crossing our fingers that our thinnest roster spots outside of TE (OL/S/DT) don't suffer a key injury. We got a little better in FA, and we got a little better over the weekend. A healthy season could give us some promising progress against a very weak schedule.

It does seem the forfeiture of a first round pick for each instance would be more appropriate.

Got some calls about the regular $2.50 Bills draft special being in effect for the Draft Party- I just confirmed it's a go.

Take the train to Downtown LA and grab RTD #4, it'll drop you off a block from the scene of the crime.

We've taken to setting up a stool with a half empty plate of wings in front of it and pretending you're there ;-)