Last Guy on the Bench

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2013/04/15/deandre-hopkins-nfl-draft-many-tragedies/2086501/ Wow. I've been really intrigued by this kid. Would love to have him on the Bills.

http://www.sportsone...ticle/43586992/ Some of my favorites (there are many more): Bad body athlete, which ironically would make him the Adonis of draftniks. Completed 54-of-56 passes during his pro day passing drill, then successfully parallel parked on a street with no other cars. Uses his hands properly, a skill most of us master in kindergarten. When covering receivers, snaps his hips, swivels his torso and bifurcates his pelvis. Already has four children by five different mothers. Just completed his missionary work, or was a Canadian fireman for a few years, or did some other pro-social thing which will make for a wonderful feature biography in the local newspaper before he is cut on July 28 to get the training camp roster down to 144 players. Accelerates slowly but bursts quickly after closing on his initial velocity. Finds the soft spots in zone coverage, or as the real draft insiders call them, the fontanelles. Throws the football like a shotput, which is no big deal when he's really competitive and religious. Right? Right? Fundamentally sound tackler who misses too many tackles and does not always tackle correctly. Ran a 4.45 and a 4.54 unconfirmed (later confirmed as a 4.34 and 4.76) at his Pro Day after running a 4.73 and 4.37 at the combine, though the track at his pro day was notoriously fast, but there was a lot of wind that day and he was also getting over the flu at the Combine. Also, he's a punter. If he plays like he did in the highlight reel his stepbrother posted on YouTube, he will be special, and he will spend his whole life with "Take it to Da House" by Trick Daddy playing in the background.

That's exactly what I thought when I read it.

A detailed, slightly different, and very entertaining write-up on Nassib. (Sample: " Nassib is the Kristen Stewart of quarterback prospects. Many people see the face of a new generation, the gorgeous-and-talented centerpiece of a successful modern-day franchise. Others like me see a mumbly, intermittently-pretty person with an overbite who can barely emote.") http://miketanier.sportsonearthblog.com/draftathon-ryan-nassib-quarterback-syracuse/ Sorry if it was already posted.

It's my favorite sporting event of the year. By far. Opening day in the NFL is second. The Bills first preseason game is 3rd. I admit this all sounds very sad - surely a product of the fact that for the past decade plus the most excited you can get about the Bills is about the potential of their draft picks. If they were better, I imagine opening day would be first (or at least a close second). Oh, and I much prefer the old Saturday/Sunday format. But either way, I love the draft and watch every minute of it.

Great. We agree on that then. So I guess I don't understand what you mean by the "in your face BS" that you seem to object to so much. Coming out by telling people in your family/workplace/community that you are gay is simply a way of preparing people to start seeing you living your normal life with the partner of your choice (i.e., going out, being physically affectionate, etc.). It would be great if no one felt the need for such "preparation," but we're mostly not there yet.

Yeah, definitely, and I wish those hetero players (who have no self-loathing or narcissism or mommy or daddy issues, because those things are SO rare in human beings) would stop with all the in-your-face hetero stuff too - always kissing their wives and girlfriends in public and going out to dinner with them and thanking them in speeches and having wives days and wives clubs and starting charities with them and talking about their weddings and how much they love them and . . .These things have NOTHING to do with athleticism or football intelligence, so they should just keep their wives and girlfriends in a closet and keep their mouths shut about them and play ball.

The thing I love about Manuel is that he just seems to have presence. I don't get that feeling with any other QB in this draft. I know the Senior Bowl is a mirage of a football game, but he looked very cool, collected, and relaxed when he was out there (and it showed up in his "results"). No other QB looked like that. It may not mean much in terms of football acumen or ability, but it does mean something psychologically. That is a high pressure situation for these guys, even if it is not really a game. I see the same kind of presence when I watch videos of him. Anyway, just a feeling. I have no clue as to which of these guys will actually turn into something. Geno Smith is an intriguing cat. Barkley's got tons of experience. Wilson is a tough SOB. But something about Manuel really grabs me. I would not be disappointed at all if they grabbed him at 8.

Well that's depressing.

For those of you who, unlike me, actually know something about college ball, which of the QBs in this year's draft are best in the clutch? The clutch could mean 4th quarter, against the best teams, when they are behind, when they are on the road, against serious pass rush pressure, etc. To me that's the most important factor for a QB. I don't watch college football at all. So like many people I spend this time of year watching every YouTube clip and reading every blog/mock I can find. But I haven't been able to figure out which of these guys really bring it when life gets difficult. Smith, Barkley, Manuel, Nassib, Wilson, Bray, Scott, Jones, Glennon? Who's got sand?

This is so true. People always get riled up that the guy with the highest salary is not the best player, but it has never worked that way. It's all about timing. The guy with the highest salary is just the best player on the open market, not the best player overall. And the salary market is projective. Locking a guy up for 5 years at the highest salary now, means you are paying him much lower on the scale 3 or 4 years from now after salaries have risen, which, as you point out, they do at a pretty rapid rate. Five years from now, 20 million a year will be a baseline for all the decent QBs in the league. The superstars on the open market will be getting much more. (Unless of course the NFL starts declining, which will happen some day, but doesn't seem imminent.)

Couldn't agree more. This is what has driven me crazy about Jones for a couple of years. He just can't make plays in the air, and it seems like that's half the battle these days for any decent wide receiver in the league. He can get open, and he's tough. But if you can't time the long and or high ones and then outmuscle the DB for them with some aplomb, you aren't too useful lined up outside. Seems like a good guy, but I wouldn't be sorry to see him go.

I sincerely hope you're right too. I will say that Marrone does have a kind of confidence, or maybe in your word 'seasoning', that I like. I do think this seemed stronger in him than in Pettine, so I agree with you there. Pettine just really struck me in terms of how many rapid, coherent, complex, sure-footed sentences he seemed to string together. Hopefully they are both freaking geniuses - or at least football geniuses.

Sadly, I had the same impression as MarkKelso. I liked everything I heard and read about Marone and was comfortable with his background, but since listening to him (pc, interview, speech he gave when he signed on to the Orange) I've been anxiously trying to convince myself that he must be smarter than he sounds. I had the same feeling with Gregg Williams and to a slightly lesser extent with Mularkey. I think it's based on a few things: answering questions with vague generalities, not responding to the main point of a question (even if it is to deflect it), sentences that are slightly tortured syntactically, reliance on a kind of cliched bluster. Now everyone has said that Marone is actually bright and detailed in his analysis of a team, etc., so I'm hoping this impression is nothing more than my own bias. I just know when I've had this feeling before, no matter how much I've tried to talk myself out of it, the coach hasn't worked out. I think almost all of the best coaches are pretty well spoken. The reverse, of course, is not true. Many well spoken people are not great coaches. I thought Chan was actually pretty articulate (despite the heat he took for his accent). On the optimistic side, for me, Pettine sounded super smart, and Hackett reasonably so. Just my two cents.

Agreed, John. Thanks for posting. I'll never understand why we can't have a reasonable discussion about whether a coach is the right guy at the right time without trashing him. It seems not to have worked out with Chan this time. That's life. But he seems to be a great guy, and he's obviously been very successful at his profession for several decades. The math is that the cumulative record of all coaches in a given league is .500. Everyone who doesn't win a super bowl is not a moron or a coward or a charlatan. Thanks for the reminder that we are still talking about human beings here - human beings who are trying extremely hard to do good work and who want to win much more ferociously than we do, whether or not they manage ultimately to succeed.

Agreed. That might be the the funniest football play I've ever seen. It's mesmerizing, and I can't stop chuckling. Haven't watched the game yet, but I think I will just based on that.Thanks to Fixxxer for posting it.

My wife asks me the same thing. It's embarrassing how emotional I get about this team. I'm pretty good at talking myself into something resembling sanity and equanimity by Monday morning, but Sunday nights are tough. I swear I am a reasonable, rational, emotionally adjusted adult in other areas of my life. I think Bill from NYC captures it best in his weekly posts. Somehow I just love this team even though it is generally painful. Can't walk away. Been that way for 30 years. Lately they are finding new ways to test us. I can enjoy a scrappy, under-talented, young but developing team over the course of a losing season if I feel like it's going somewhere. But this turning our wheels in the sands of mediocrity no matter how improved the talent looks on paper is killing me.

Quite. But the argument wasn't that they were successful in Seattle because they were drafted low (obviously) but because they were big and physical.

Also notes their big physical, un-pedigreed corners. If this argument is right, makes me even more excited about Gilmore. http://www.slate.com...l_s_second.html

It was definitely not just you. Bills fans came through loud and clear on the little MacBook I was watching the game on. At the peak moments, the Cards fans were louder, as they should be, but during a lot of the game, it was hard to tell where the game was (you know, except for the picture of that angry red bird on the 50 yard line). Awesome job, Bills fans in AZ. Very impressive.

Wow. Some serious insight in that. Very interesting read with nuances that you don't often hear anything about.

One of the reasons I so want this team to do well, make the playoffs, get some national pub, etc. is because this group of players is so easy to like. (The other reason is because like the rest of you idiots I have been personally suffering psychological and sometimes physical pain on more than half my fall Sundays for the past 12 fargin years.) From Senator Wilson to Ryan Neighborhood BBQ Every Sunday After Home Games Fitzgibbon to Fred Greatest Teammate of All Time Jackson to Kyle I Will Tackle You Without Touching You By Driving Your Own Lineman Into Your Grill and Then I Will Chuckle About It Williams to Leodis I Don't Care How Many Ways I Get Benched and How Many Fans Yell at Me on Twitter I WIll Still Be a Friendly, Stand-up Guy, and I Will Still Try to Play My Ass Off Every Time I'm On the Field Sink or Swim Which is Why My Teammates Mob Me When I Do Something Good McKelvin, it's a righteous team. I love them. I love them all.

I'd rather see them try to run him out of the backfield a little bit, especially with CJ down. That might be interesting.

Agree. One of the things I've really appreciated about Gailey is that he doesn't ever seem to play scared. He goes for it. Doesn't always work out, but you're right, it's more about creating a certain attitude on your team than optimizing any particular possession.

Buffalo's own. Wish he were the Bills' own. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1205810/1/index.htm