yungmack

The "Chan sucks, Nix sucks" thing gets a little old over time. The critics might be right but let's remember where the Bills were at when they hired Nix and Gailey. You couldn't get a top candidate for either spot to touch this franchise with a 10 foot pole. Or has everyone forgotten? Nix took the job after an increasingly out of touch and very old owner had given the position to his marketing guy, who came in on the heels of an in-over-his-head Marv Levy, who jumped in after the mess Tom Donohoe made of the team, who took over for the poorly treated John Butler, who got the job after Wilson fired Polian...Do you get the picture? The entire franchise was about as close to wrecked as it's possible to get in the NFL when Nix took over. Same with Gailey. I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that they were about the only ones around who wanted the jobs. So Nix's drafts weren't the greatest (but overall, they are rank well against other teams) and he didn't get that QB he should have. But in certain areas, he greatly improved the franchise in general, like enlarging the scouting department, bringing in Whaley, getting the cap under control, restocking the roster with some very solid FAs (especially in the backup slots), etc. Here's a good way to judge the impact Nix has had: According to reporting at the time, when he took over as GM, he couldn't get any of the hot and/or top candidates to even interview for the head coach job, much less get to the point of negotiating. Nobody wanted anything to do with the Bills job. Yet when he fired Chan, it has been widely reported that his phone was ringing off the hook with guys -- supposedly some of them among those hot and/or top guys available -- angling for the job. That people around the league now view the Bills as a serious franchise is the best vote-of-confidence about the job Nix has done. And he did that in just three years. This is an amazing accomplishment and should not be undervalued.

Whether or not Levitre and Byrd are worth what they think they are, the decision facing the Bills is simple and stark: either pay them or lose them. If you pay them, you can use your draft picks and FA money to shore up weak spots. Lose them, and precious resources have to be expended just to tread water. In other words, another year in the never ending rebuilding of the Bills, and continuing mediocrity.

Isn't that redundant?

I see that the old refrain about "the Bills suck at drafting" is alive and well. While I'd be the last to stage a parade down Main Street to honor OBD, I think we around here have a tendency to get a little to "tight-focused" on just the Bills. If we expand our view out to include the entire AFCE, my impression is that the Dolphins, Jets and Pats have not exactly set the world on fire with their own drafts in recent years. Or at least have done no better than the Bills. For those of you who like to do this sort of thing, it might be illuminating to go through Bill Polian's drafts to see just how many of his picks didn't work out so well.

FTR, IR is not the same as the practice squad.

Wow, talk about your stereotyping. Clearly, you have never been to SoCal. And just as clearly, you have bought into the Beach Boys fantasy of Life In LA. For the record, Barkley is from inland Orange County, and goes to college in dodgy South Central LA. "Hangin' at Venice Beach" is reserved more or less for the freaks and the tourists (and the housing is split between gangbangin' neighborhoods and gentrified areas for the hip rich); huge amounts of the area are among the roughest in the nation; blue collar workers vastly outnumber the Malibu/Beverly Hills wealthy types; the Armenian, Chinese, Samoan, Korean, Mexican, Indian (both American and South Asian types), Thai, Philipino, Vietnamese, Australian, Israeli and even Inuit communites are the largest in the world outside their native countries; lots of the many SoCal kids playing in college and the NFL come from the deserty ratlands north and east of LA that most people strive to avoid either living in or passing through, and a huge percentage of kids in LA have never seen, much less been to, the beach or Hollywood or any of the other places associated with fantasy of Southern California. When you rely on stereotypes, particularly false ones, to create your negative opinion, then you are in fact being hateful.

I think you are right to focus on a position of where there are many very good players instead of wasting a top pick on aQB of modest ability in the hope he will turn out to be a gem. I would only question giving Smith & Barkley a pass as, to my eye, neither of them is good enough to qualify as a top QB in the NFL. I will go so far as to predict that Smith will be a huge flop & Barkley will no more than okay.

I agree with your statement. And I'm sure they're going to try to find one. I just don't know if any of the guys this year are significantly better than Fitz to the point where you expend the #8 pick on them. And if OBD feels that they're all a shot in the dark, then take one in the second round. Out of the whole bunch of them, I'm becoming more and more intrigued with Nassib, and with Wilson. I'm not saying either one is franchise quality or even starter quality, just that they are moving to the top of my personal list.

I don't think they all suck, just that none of them have that "can't miss" quality. They all appear to be second tier talents. The question to ask yourself if, if they'd come out last year, which ones would have been drafted in the first round? If none of this year's crop would have been a top pick last year, then why would you spend a top pick on them this year when there are equal or greater needs on the Bills for which there are some really good players? The Bills will definitely pick one of these guys though I don't think they'll use the #8 on any of them. There seems to be a case of "magical thinking" with some fans that if their team uses a high first round pick to take a guy who, by all objective standards, is a second tier talent, abra kadabra, he turns into a franchise QB simply by being taken high in the draft. One reason the Bills are in the unfortunate position of having to take a QB in a fallow year is that Buddy Nix passed on Collin Kaepernick AND Russell Wilson last year, both of whom were better than any of this year's candidates. I would love for one of the beat reporters to corner him on that screw up.

Stats have their place but I still rely ultimately on my eyes. And after watching Geno Smith quite a bit, my opinion (and that's all it is) is that he's emotionally erratic, more in the Vince Young mold, with enough talent to do very well in college, but with enough flaws that he will have a difficult time in the pros. Here's an article from the LA Times in which Greg Cosell gives his opinions of the top QB prospects: http://www.latimes.com/sports/football/nfl/la-sp-nfl-scout-quarterbacks-20130223,0,6035113.story

Based on what I see with my own eyes, combined with comments by professional talent evaluators I respect, the areas with the highest talent in this year's draft appear to be the offensive and defensive lines, outside linebackers and then the secondary, with a few tantalizing prospects at WR and TE. The critical area with the least proven high-level talent seems to be QB. The Bills have real needs at linebacker, secondary, WR and QB and really don't need to draft linemen in the first or second round. And I'm not at all sure there's a WR or TE deserving to be picked at #8. And with the QBs being perceived as middling talents at best, it makes sense to me that the Bills would use that first pick on a linebacker, a safety or a corner. As to QBs, the top ten or so all remind me of a combination of Fitz, Ponder, Eli Manning, Rivers, Kaepernick and a few others. By that I mean that they all have had moments that are stellar, combined with moments that are just God-awful; they all seem to have both big talent and big flaws; they all have that intriguing quality, "potential for success." In other words, all these QBs in this year's draft are a "shot in the dark" who, with proper development, could turn into a Manning or a Kaepernick. Or they could stall out in that "falling just short" area of Rivers. Or you could wind up with another Fitz. Even worse, you could wind up with a Losman, a Brohm or any of the many QBs who were at one time seem as having that "potential for success." So I wouldn't use that #8 pick on one of them, even though there's a chance one or more of them might turn out to be great in coming years because the Bills cannot afford to blow this pick on a "here's hoping" choice when there are highly regarded talents at positions of real need. The Bills will certainly draft a QB somewhere in this draft (and let's hope it's not some Levi Brown afterthought). With doubts about all the candidates being pretty much league-wide, there's a good chance the Bills will have a second round shot at one of the many guys whose names are being tossed around TBD. Who they pick will likely be as much a function of who's available as anything else. For myself, I'll wait until after the combine before getting truly serious about them. But at the moment, I'm finding I like Ryan Nassib more and more as one of those "QBs with potential" who just might blossom into somebody special.

This is the heart of the matter concerning QBs and seems to be what all the "get rid of Fitz NOW" types around are missing. Sure, he's never going to be a first rank QB. But until there is someone better to fill the slot, how in the heck does getting rid of him improve the position? There are no QBs in free agency that the Bills have a realistic shot at. And as to the ones in this year's draft, I'm not sure any of them are in any way an upgrade over Fitz, or, if they are, it's not much of an improvement, certainly not enough to be called a "franchise quarterback."

A couple of wrong assumptions seem to be making the rounds on different threads about Aaron Rodgers and Steve Young. Young had a bad time in Tampa with a lousy team he didn't want to play for. There never was a question about his ability (he was the highest paid QB in history with the LA Express). which finally was shown once he got traded to a good team. As to Rodgers, the Packers highly valued him, seeing him as the eventual heir to Favre. That's how they handled & trained. True, they didn't put all their eggs in one basket, constantly drafting QBs. But while they were always open to listening to offers for those other guys, they never ever considered getting rid of Rodgers. In fact, when push came to shove, it was Favre who was sbown the door.

Without a doubt.

Man oh man, where to begin? First off, why do you even care about this? You seem so incensed. You start by saying a city (LA) is trying to lure a team, then you jump to the amount of teams in the state to bolster your argument. So by your illogical logic, because New York City has a bunch of sports teams, why should Buffalo bother with having any? And as far as I know, the only ones involved in bringing an NFL team to LA are private businessmen. So are you suggesting that private enterprise should somehow be banned from trying to make money because California has more than its "fair share" of sports? Or that the NFL shouldn't want to put a team in the second largest market in the country because there are already teams in the state. If you want to blow off steam on unnecessary expansion, I'd suggest going after Starbucks and Subway, which seem to have a store on every other corner. As to the supposed fickleness of Cali sports fans, I would point out that the Dodgers, who haven't been to the World Series since 1988, and have generally been more mediocre than good for those 25 years still have often led the majors in attendance during that time, while averaging 3 million or more consistently. Sure, attendance for all the teams in the state rise when they're having the great years. But how is that different from any other place? Don't the Bills sell more season tickets and draw more "fair weather fans" when the team is on a roll? And finally, I highlighted one of the great falsehoods that has somehow come to be accepted as the truth, that LA "lost" two NFL teams. In fact, the Rams regularly drew 80, 90, 100,000 when they played in the Colisseum which was better than any other team in the NFL for many, many years. The sole reason for moving first to Anaheim then to St. Louis was the refusal of LA to bribe them to stay in town, and then Anaheim's refusal to match the crazy deal St. Louis paid. So it wasn't for lack of fan support that they moved; it was all about the dough. As to the Raiders, they were fantastically well-received and supported in LA (and still are, for the record) until Al Davis started his extortions which, once again, the city refused to pay. When Davis had squeezed all he could out of this or that city in Southern Cal, he cut a deal with Alameda County and took off. In neither case was there a lack of fan support. And in fact, the Raiders haven't drawn nearly as well since moving back to Oakland though the taxpayer subsidies apparently make up for that.

It might be best to wait three or four seasons before anointing anyone as a "franchise QB." And in spite of what you wrote, there were plenty of scouts and others who felt Russell Wilson had first round talent. The only knock on him I remember anyone bringing up was his height, not his abilities. No. New coaches, new approach. So stick with Fitz for now. Not that he's likely to become Tom Brady. But maybe he becomes Alex Smith 2.0. Considering the dearth of real talent among this year's QB crop, I'd like to see linebackers, WRs and CBs added either through the draft, through trades or FA signings before settling for a QB who's a project. We already have enough of them.

So, in a year when by general consensus, there aren't any true "can't miss" QBs in the draft, the Bills are going to take one of them and turn the team over to this rookie from day one? And you're okay with that? Or maybe you think they should take some other team's castoff QB and try to get him ready to QB while the rookie is learning the ropes? And who would that be? Alex Smith? Matt Flynn? Even if you could get them to come to Buffalo, what would it cost? Would it be a savings over Fitz? And would any of them be much of an improvement over Fitz? Personally I'd be surprised if he's not in B-low this year. The after that? That's the real question.

Here are two speaking tics that drive me a little bit nuts: First, an old time one that still goes around: "Like I was saying" when you haven't yet said whatever it is you're referring to And a current one: Starting answers or comments with "So, " This one is epidemic paricularly among twenty and thirty somethings.

Just for the record, Carroll might not have taken Sanchez because...Sanchez was already under contract to another team. Unless the NFL has changed the rules, I don't think you can draft a guy off another team's roster. And as to Carroll waiting for a "true franchise" QB to come around, I don't think he or anyone else thought that Wilson was going to be this good this soon. I'm pretty sure Carroll thought Matt Flynn was going to be that guy.

Any player from Syracuse.

Two questions: 1 - Have you watched a lot of games with Geno Smith? 2 - Have you watched a lot of games with other leading QBs?

Here's how Nix has had a major impact in turning around the Bills: when he first took over, he couldn''t get any of the top candidates to even do an interview for HC. According to several reports, this time around, they were calling him. And every candidate they were interested in met with them. That suggests to me that the Bills have risen from laughing stock to at least being perceived as a franchise on the verge of success. This is no small thing.

Perfect comment!!!

Is Doug Marrone insecure about what looks to me to be a nice head of hair? Does he not want to have anyone around him whose hair might distract from his own? I ask this because every one of his staff hires so far -- Pettine, Hackett, Crossman and Weaver -- are all bald, balding or shaved-headed. Is alopecia a requirement for being hired to his staff? Does this bias toward glittering pates need to be addressed by a variant on the Rooney Rule? Are coaches with a full head of hair suffering from discrimination? Bills fans demand to know!!! Especially ones with flowing locks.

According to Gregg Rosenthal at NFL.Com, Hackett will be the OC, Of particular note, Hackett apparently relied heavily on the Bills playbook from the 90s, and we can expect to see a return of the K-Gun and an overall high speed offense. Here's the link: http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap1000000124048/article/nathaniel-hackett-reportedly-will-be-buffalo-bills-oc