yungmack

And he's got a great nickname: Pot Roast

It's also important to remember that career stats for all players are skewed by the length of the season. Up into the 50s, the NFL played a 12 game season with a one-game post season. That means that what a player of today can accomplish in a 10 year career would have taken 15 years in "the olden days."

Ha ha!

Seems nearly everyone agrees that in the area of "holes," there are two that can be filled this off season and draft: LB and LG. Beyond that, there is the QB question which will NOT be addressed this year. Without a doubt, EJ will be given this off season and full regular season to make it or break it. I personally don't believe he will ever be a franchise QB or even a reliably middle of the pack one but he will be "the guy" this year. The rest of the positions (WR, TE, RG, RT, etc.) are about upgrading. A lot of offensive problems will be solved with much improved QB play which hopefully the Bills will get with EJ (but I'm not holding my breath). And for the heck of it, if the Bills are considering a TE in the later rounds, here's my candidate (based strictly on his name): Gator Hoskins out of Marshall. He'll be playing in the Senior Bowl.

Nice job of study and analysis. I think your picks will definitely all be gone by pick 50. I don't necessarily think they'll go quite like you have them here (Mack vs Barr, for example). While I wouldn't go screaming into that good night if the Bills picked an OT, I'm not sure the FO would agree with you that a RT is worth a #9 pick. I hope you keep updating and refining over the next few months.

Mmm, doughnuts...

Interesting this comes on the heels of the Dreisbach dismissal. I wonder if he's angry.

I'm for committing all of them.

Not to single out the guys here because this is a wide spread condition of just about anyone under the age of 40, this focus on the present moment, accompanied by an almost complete amnesia about anything that happened even just a few years ago, but it does drive me a little bit nuts when people say, "Well, that's before my time so it doesn't matter to me" or "That was a different time and the stars from that era shouldn't be compared to those of today," and so on. So what then? There's no need or relevance to study Thomas Jefferson, Aristotle, Einstein, Tesla and the like because "that was before my time"? Or Napoleon, Alexander the Great or Admiral Nelson shouldn't be studied because "they dominated before machine guns, airplanes and submarines." As to picking the best players of all time, they each have to be judged against the competition of their time, with the rules that existed in their day. For example, the QBs and receivers of today are going to blow up all the records of QBs and receivers from as recently as ten years ago because of rule changes. Andre Reed had the second most receptions in the history of the NFL when he retired but the way things are going, he likely won't be in the top 50 in another twenty years. Will that prove to a generation yet to be born that he really wasn't a very good receiver? With that in mind, I maintain that the greatest QB in NFL history has to be Otto Graham because he totally dominated his era...and was an almost revolutionary throwing QB as well, not just a hand-off guy. And from his era, we have to consider Unitas, Sammy Baugh, Y.A. Tittle and Bobby Lane just for starters. Moving along, let's not overlook Norm Van Brocklin, Bob Waterfield, Fran Tarkenton, Joe Theisman, Darryl LaMonica, Ken Stabler, Dan Fouts and Len Dawson. I'm sure I'm overlooking several others who qualify but you get the idea: that there are far more great QBs to consider besides ones from the last two decades. Learn about them, study them, it's fun and illuminating.

One of the ways of judging anyone's likely performance is the record of past performances. In Crossman's case, his record is one of failure, in improving performance, or at least maintaining the level it was at before he took over. It seems like even a cursory review of that record would raise red flags with employers, and should have done so with Marrone. I have no idea why he went ahead and hired him with his track record, but if it was out of friendship, then it was foolish. And now, having had a year in which Crossman yet again ground down a Special Teams - further evidence that his track record is no fluke - it makes no sense to keep him on staff. As someone else posted, had his record included several years of high level play and a few of low performance, a case could be made to give him another year. But that's not Crossman's history, not even close. His is a record of incessant failure wherever he's gone, one which he has continued in Buffalo. It makes no sense to me that Hilliard and Driesbach were shown the door so rapidly for their perceived failures (no mention so far of needing to draft "more core" receivers or linebackers in their case) while Crossman is seemingly given a pass.

LaMonica

My guess is you could take the NFL's top two WRs and the top TE from 2013 and if you have EJ, Lewis or Tuel throwing to them, the result would be...6-10. Unless and until one of these guys develops into a reliable NFL QB or a new QB is brought in, don't waste your time wishin' and hopin' that a couple of more receivers or a couple of more linemen will magically propel the Bills into the upper echelon of NFL teams. And as the Bills are committed to giving EJ at least one more season to prove he either does or does not have "it," the first one or two picks in the upcoming draft should focus on upgrading the D's run-stopping ability. That at least is fairly easily fixable. As to the Offense, the most critical needs (aside from a good QB) are not receivers but a LG and just maybe a RT and RG. In any case, I personally wouldn't expend the #9 pick on any of those slots.

Reminds me of Big Daddy Lipscomb's deathless treatise on defense: "You keep picking up guys and throwing them away until you find the guy with the ball. Him you keep."

It still galls me...

Um, football fans?

I fully agree with you. And I would add that all the talk about "a stud WR or a stud TE" is misguided. While both would be nice to have, neither are a "need" this year. LB seems to be the most crucial area for a #9 pick upgrade. And without a doubt the Oline needs serious shoring up which can be addressed in later rounds. As to the LB the Bills should draft, Barr has only played the position for two years (he was an offensive player) & has done an excellent job so far. I like Mack, but the level of competition he faced versus Barr is vastly different so on that basis alone, I'd lean towards Barr. Another UCLA guy to keep in mind is Cassius Marsh. He came in as a 300 pound DE, dropped his weight to 260 and continued to play outstanding at the position. The thing about him is he is very fast, with high end sideline to sideline ability. And supposedly he's very "football smart." In many ways, he reminds me of Kiko so if he is still there in, say, the third round, he might make a great pick.

For the record, Blount was a UFA. Watching him and Lynch yesterday playing old-school football (run it down their throats with dominance) made me wonder a couple of things: would the Bills have been better off keeping Lynch? And that game -changing RBs can be found deep into the draft. Or to put it another way, the Spiller pick looks more and more like foolishness.

I love Butch Byrd but isn't he kinda old to be playing football?

He's of Scots descent. Funniest line of the day!

I don't think the Bills intended to start EJ this past season, or at least not until well into the season. I seem to remember lots of talk after the draft that he had a very high upside but needed work to develop. Kolb's injuries obviously changed all of that. If the plan all along was to use the rookie season as a "study and develop" time, with an eye to the second year, then EJ is "on schedule" and even a little bit ahead by having started this year. I'm willing to reserve final judgment on EJ until next year. If there is a screw up factor here, it has to do with making the highly injury-prone Kolb the key to buying EJ a training year. In hindsight, it might have been more sensible to have just kept Fitz for another year. Oh well.

I believe he's actually of Mexican descent on his father's side, and Polish/German on his mother's. His paternal grandfather was from Coahuila, Mexico. Romo's full name is Antonio Ramiro Romo. He was born in San Diego but grew up in Wisconsin.

I have been following pro football a lot longer than most of you have been alive and I have never ever heard a head coach say he needed to get more special team players. Aside from the kicker, punter, snapper and holder, the rest of that squad is made up of guys on the regular roster, some of whom are starters but most of them are the back-ups. In fact, many guys make the regular roster because of their ability to play on special teams. If the guys the Bills used this year on special teams aren't up to that job, how can they possibly be good enough to be back-ups? Compare Crossman's units with what Pettine and his assistants accomplished: they managed to salvage the careers of Aaron Williams, Leodis McKelvin, possibly Manny Lawson, Mario Williams and Jerry Hughes, not to mention getting phenomenal rookie seasons out of Kiko and Nickell. This on the heels of the god-awful defense that Wannstedt ran last year. I believe that much of that improvement has to do with coaching, just as the drop-off in special teams this year from last does. Crossman was this season's Dave Wannstedt, whose failures negatively impacted the team overall.

There was a guy named Montana you might have heard of...and a guy named LaMonica...and one named Marino...and Flacco... Okay, I'm stopping now.

Football is the most team-oriented sport I can think of. Great receivers stink if the QB is poor, and a good QB stinks if the receivers are poor. A quick-release O plan masks a mediocre line, but a mediocre line exposes a QB who needs more time to read and react, and so on. This problem extends to the Offensive Coordinator as well...if your team can't execute a solid game plan, then you have to find one that does. And that limits your game design and play-calling. And nearly every call has multiple options for the QB (a pass play can be re-called as a run, and a streak pattern can be checked down to a quick slant, etc.) and depending on the outcome, the OC can look like either a genius or a fool. It is this particular aspect of football that makes it so darned difficult to determine where the real problem lies. So I don't know how to evaluate Hackett. Maybe he's good, maybe he's bad; maybe the problem is the QB, maybe the receivers, maybe the head coach. If he was, say, the Chargers OC, would he now be interviewing for a head coaching position? Or would he be clearing out his locker? Like I said, I can't tell.

Very intelligent posting.