SoTier

^^^ So, you two are obviously either privy to what the Bills' FO office staff were thinking last year, or you're mind readers who've personally met with McDermott. So, why are you wasting your time and talent posting on a fan message board rather than trading on connections and/or talent to make some real $$$?

Exactly this. Except for 2004 which was an outlier because of its quality, drafts with 4 QBs going in the first round since 2000 (2003, 2011, and 2012) have yielded only 4 hits among the 12 first rounders (Palmer, Newton, Luck, and Tannehill). Even the 3 successful first rounders from 2004 only raise that to 7/16 which is less than 50%, and the three successes from 2004 were significantly better prospects than the top guys this year. What if there isn't one to be found??? Sorry, but drafting a QB in the first round doesn't guarantee that he'll be successful. Not only were both Losman and Manuel failures for the Bills but so were top ten picks David Carr, Joey Harrington, Byron Leftwich, Vince Young, Matt Leinart, JaMarcus Russell, Mark Sanchez, Jake Locker, Blaine Gabbert, and Robert Griffin III for other teams. Since Mahomes and Watson have played all of 8 NFL games combined, it's a bit early to declare them successes. Both of these players had significant question marks about how they would adapt to the pro game. Now, one or both may turn out great or really lousy. Come back in a couple of years to see if passing on either of them was a mistake.

Promises, promises, promises ...

If they think Roquan Smith is a better LB than Lamar Jackson is a QB, and they go BPA, that works for me. A first round stud is a stud. A first round bust is an expensive backup. In fact, with all the hysteria over 4 or 5 potential first round QBs, maybe taking a guy in the 2nd or 3rd round is a smart move because those guys get lost in the shuffle. That worked to Cinci's advantage in 2011, and Seattle hit the jackpot in 2012 in the third while Washington did much better with the one they took in the fourth than they did with the one they took at #2 in 2012.

Since when did wealth become a synonym for altruism? As a point of fact, historically numerous wealthy individuals were notoriously tight-fisted and ruthless when it came to their business dealings. For numerous reasons, sometimes because they felt compelled to share their good fortune or sometimes just to avoid taxes, they or their heirs made generous gifts to all kinds of charities both before and after their deaths. People today, both rich and poor, frequently do the same. Y'know, even a blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut. Mostly Sullivan's full of BS but he's right on this one. The Bills win-loss record over Wilson's tenure as owner speaks for itself: 21 winning seasons in 54 years, and virtually all of them under only 3 HCs: Lou Saban, Chuck Knox, and Marv Levy. In the last 14 years of Wilson's ownership, the Bills had exactly 1 winning season and 0 playoff appearances when teams with owners who invested in top quality FO and coaching staffs were perennial playoff and Super Bowl contenders despite being operating under the same salary cap rules as the Bills. How many players that the Bills drafted and then chose to trade or not re-sign as FAs went on to become Pro Bowlers, All Pros, or potential HOFers with other teams? How about Antoine Winfield, Nate Clements, Pat Williams, Jason Peters, and Marshawn Lynch? The number of ex-Bills who went on to become key performers for playoff and Super Bowls teams is embarrassing large for a team that never even made the playoffs in the 21st century under Wilson's ownership. Look at how many ex-Bills played in the 2018 Super Bowl. You can dismiss the accusation that Wilson refused to spend on his FO and coaching staffs because you don't like Jerry Sullivan or because you wish to put Wilson up on a pedestal as if he were George Washington or Thomas Jefferson, but it's not going to change the reality that under his ownership, the Bills sucked almost annually except for the Polian-Butler era.

What evidence do you have that teams are doing #2 (trading up) or #3 (gambling on raw prospects) more now than prior to the rookie salary structure was put into place in 2011, and are doing so because of the rookies salary cap? I just don't see it. IMO, it's the media draft mavens and fans obsessed with the idea that getting a top QB solves all their teams problems that drive these ideas. The pros are doing pretty much what they always have done: drafting QBs they like when they get the chance, including trading up on occasion or taking raw prospects. IMO analytics haven't yet proven accurate in predicting QBs' NFL success. - First of all, there's the definition of "success". I don't count "success" as a QB merely being a starting QB for a team. Trevor Siemian starting 24 games might be "success" but only for a 7th rounder, not for a first rounder. If we're talking first rounder, then I want him to be a bonafide franchise QB at least on the level of Jay Cutler, Ryan Tannehill, Andy Dalton or Joe Flacco -- a competent starter who can shine with the right supporting cast and occasionally show flashes of brilliance, and do this for multiple seasons. Your definition of "success" seems much less rigorous than mine. - The second problem is the small sample size. In order to test the assumptions used to develop the number crunching algorithms, you have to have lots of data. QBs generally take time to develop, so there's going to be a time lag between the time they're drafted and when the successful ones come into their own. More importantly, one year of good/great play does not make a QB "success". This means that while the QBs in the 2011, 2012, and 2013 classes have shaken out, the story of the 2014, 2015, 2016, and 2017 classes remain mostly incomplete. There were 9 first round QBs, 4 second rounders, 4 third rounders, and 5 fourth rounders taken between 2011-2013, for a total of 22. If you go back 3 more years, (2008-2010) you get 7 first rounders, 4 second rounders, 2 third rounders, and 2 fourth rounders for a total of 15. Thirty seven QBs is simply too small a sample, and even if you add in the 43 QBs taken in rounds 5, 6, and 7 between 2008 and 2013, you still only have 80 QBs, probably 60% of whom never got an opportunity to even play in a regular season NFL game. - Finally, I think the increase in the number of QBs coming out of the rounds below the first in recent years suggests that analytics is missing the keys to QB success just like the human scouts have been doing for years.

IMO, there will be at least one QB with a first round grade (in alpha order Allen, Darnold, Mayfield, Rosen) available at #12. I think only 2 QBs will go in the top five, one to Cleveland and one to the Jests, unless the Bills trade up which I don't think they should do unless they are absolutely committed to one of these prospects -- and as you wrote, they all have areas of concern, so maybe not so much. I think that all the talk of all these kids going in the top five is simply media hype fed by the media frenzy that now surrounds the NFL draft. Nobody knows how the pros have these kids rated, and all the talk about this team wanting X or that team pursuing Y is just speculation fueled by wishful thinking or the need to generate clicks/ratings. A few of the predictions might even be right ... after all broken clocks are right twice a day.

Contrary to popular thought, I don't think that the rookie salary scale has much to do with the "rise" of false QB prospects. I think that very few teams are allowing the salary cap implications to determine whether they take a first round QB or not as there doesn't seem any correlation between the quality of QBs taken after the first round before the institution of the rookie salary cap and after. If the rookie salary encouraged teams to draft lesser prospects in the first round, there should be even fewer "successful" QBs coming out of the lower rounds. The reverse almost seems to be true as the most successful QBs in both 2012 and 2013 came from later in the draft. On both sides of the rookie salary cap, when there are attractive QB prospects, they get drafted in the first round and less attractive prospects get drafted later, and teams continue to miss on their QB evaluations. Year - # of first rounders - Best QBs: (by draft order) The NFL salary cap was instituted in 1994. 1994 - 2 Best QBs: Trent Dilfer (1), Gus Frerotte 1995 - 2 Best QBs: Steve McNair (1), Kerry Collins (1), Kordell Stewart 1996 - 0 Best QBs: Tony Banks 1997 - 1 Best QBs: Jake Plummer 1998 - 2 Best QBs: Peyton Manning (1), Charlie Batch, Matt Hasselbeck 1999 - 5 Best QBs: Donovan McNabb (1), Daunte Culpepper (1) 2000 - 1 Best QBs: Chad Pennington (1), Marc Bulger, Tom Brady 2001 - 1 Best QBs: Michael Vick (1), Drew Brees 2002 - 3 Best QBs: Josh McCown, David Garrard 2003 - 4 Best QBs: Carson Palmer (1) 2004 - 4 Best QBs: Eli Manning (1), Phillip Rivers (4), Ben Roethlisberger (11), Matt Schaub 2005 - 3 Best QBs: Alex Smith (1), Aaron Rodgers (1), Kyle Orton, Matt Cassel, Ryan Fitzpatrick 2006 - 3 Best QBs: Jay Cutler (11) 2007 - 3 Best QBs: Drew Stanton 2008 - 2 Best QBs: Matt Ryan (1), Joe Flacco (1) 2009 - 3 Best QBs: Matthew Stafford (1) 2010 - 2 Best QBs: Sam Bradford (1) Rookie salary cap instituted 2011 - 4 Best QBs: Cam Newtown (1), Andy Dalton 2012 - 4 Best QBs: Andrew Luck (1), Ryan Tannehill (1), Russell Wilson, Nick Foles, Kirk Cousins 2013 - 1 Best QBs: Mike Glennon 2014 - 3 Best QBs: Blake Bortles (1), Teddy Bridgewater (1), Derek Carr, Jimmy Garoppolo 2015 - 2 Best QBs: Jameis Winston (1), Marcus Mariota (1) 2016 - 2 Best QBs: Jared Goff (1), Carson Wentz (1), Dak Prescott

The word is "hyena". It's a dog-like scavenger found primarily in Africa. Very well said. Living in a small (by population not land area), predominantly rural county, I can attest to this. Numerous schools in Chautauqua County have gone to combined programs to keep football teams on the field. In this area, it predominantly affects white athletes rather than blacks, but it's a problem throughout rural/small town America but especially in the Plains states where some areas are becoming depopulated.

Actually, ethnicity isn't that at all. It's the fact of belonging to/ identifying with a social group that shares a common national or cultural tradition. In the US it's primarily used to describe European Americans who have strong cultural ties to their European roots (ie, Italians, Greeks, Polish, etc) but is also frequently used to describe Latinos (Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Brazilians, etc). Asians, too, have distinct ethnic groups like Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, etc. It's not usually associated with blacks in the US but there are a few distinct cultural groups among American blacks, most notably Haitians and Jamaicans. Ethnicity is not the same thing or even close to the same thing as "race" or "color" at all unless you go back to the archaic usage of "race" used in the late 19th century when some racist writers popularized the idea of ethnic groups as "races" as in "the German race" or "the Anglo Saxon race". Ethnicity is primarily based on culture. Race is primarily based on physical characteristics, most notably skin color.

This is how I remember it, too, and I've been a fan since about 1963. IIRC, Wilson only rehired Lou Saban because after about 5 or 6 losing seasons, fans had abandoned the Bills. Saban came in and took advantage of OJ Simpson's talent and built a playoff team. That was a consistent pattern as long as NFL teams were dependent upon ticket sales -- the Bills sucked for several years until fans stopped attending games and then the Bills took action, bringing in better coaches/FO people to build a winning team which lasted until the winning HC/GM left because of dissatisfaction with Wilson, and the team would sink into suckitude again. In the 2000s, the money from the TV deals made ticket sales much less important, so Wilson had no reason to do much. I think that free agency and the salary cap also were easy scapegoats for the Bills' unwillingness to pay outstanding players they had drafted and developed, especially in Buffalo where so many fans have blue collar roots. I also think that the rise of Russ Brandon within the Bills organization was more evidence of Wilson putting profit before winning. Before he came to the Bills, Brandon's claim to fame was the gutting of the Florida Marlins the year after they won the World Series, a move which resulted from Brandon dropping the team from having one of the highest salary costs to one of the lowest. It also resulted in the Marlins going from World Champions to the worst team in the league and finishing an enormous number of games behind the pennant winner. If you check Brandon's on-line biographies you won't find any mention of his time with the Marlins but you will find the outline of how he gutted the team in articles about the Marlins baseball team.

Doing otherwise is stupid. The only top five pick that you trade up for before the draft is the #1 pick. A team doesn't trade up into the Top 5 from #12 unless its guy is there. If the team is willing to take "any one of the above", then they're incompetent.

There are a lot of myths circulating among Bills fans concerning Ralph Wilson's affinity for the area as well as his role in keeping the Bills in Buffalo. I've become increasingly skeptical about how much truth actually underlies those myths as the years go by. One thing I do know is that Wilson repeatedly used the threat of moving the team to get very favorable lease terms for the stadium. He also wasn't interested in selling the team, so there's no way to know if there were any individuals or groups twenty or forty years ago that would have purchased it and kept it here. That there was no one who would have bought the team and kept it here is all based on assumptions not facts. BTW, after Wilson died and the team was sold, it has remained in Buffalo. Maybe that had something to do with how Wilson had things set up or maybe it's just that the Pegulas have their own affinity for the Buffalo area ... or maybe it was just a good business decision because there was no better place to move it. Very well said. BTW, saying that Wilson was a cheapskate owner is hardly "revisionist history". Commentators and fans have been saying that for years. I personally have been critical of how the Bills were run under Wilson for years. The bottom line has ALWAYS been more important than winning for Wilson and his minions, many of whom were his family and friends rather than competent football professionals. Many NFL owners pad their team payrolls with family and friends, but most don't put them in positions of real power as the Bills did with Littman. The evidence that the Bills weren't interested in spending on coaches is pretty plain, too. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Bills HCs were spectacularly awful with the exception of Lou Saban and Chuck Knox, both hired after dismal on field performances left tens of thousands of empty seats in Rich Stadium. Except for Chuck Knox, none had any kind of NFL success after leaving the Bills, either. Even Marv Levy didn't have impressive credentials when he was hired, and his hiring was considered "more of the same mediocrity". It's also the opinion of many fans and analysts that the Bills might even have a Lombardi or two if they had had better coaching, especially against the Giants. In a previous post in this thread, I outlined the repeated problems the Bills had in signing their first round draft picks even when these players had only limited options. Some of the old time sports reporters of the day like Larry Felser frequently criticized the Bills for drafting "players they could sign" rather than good players, which may be why so many top Bills draft picks sucked. It wasn't until the Polian era that the Bills started going BPA in any kind of meaningful way. Oh, yeah, and the parade of DBs and RBs drafting in the first round to replace DBs and RBs who left in FA or through trade in the last decade and a half of Wilson's ownership is simply more evidence that the Bills watched that bottom line more than their win-loss record. It's also historical fact is that during Wilson's 54 year tenure as owner, the Bills had only 19 winning seasons, and 10 of those came in the 14 years between 1986 and 2000 under Bill Polian and his protege, John Butler. Most of the Bills playoff appearances also occurred in this period. Since Butler left, the Bills had exactly 1 winning season and 0 playoff appearances in the last 13 years of Wilson's ownership. Since Pegula became owner, despite a poor choice of HC in Rex Ryan, the Bills have already had 2 winning seasons and 1 playoff appearance in 4 years.

Well, let's see ... OJ Simpson held out for months as a rookie. Tom Cousineau, one of the Bills #1 draft picks, preferred to play in the CFL rather than sign for the length of his career with the Bills. Jim Kelly chose to play in the USFL rather than sign with the Bills, and only signed with the Bills after the USFL went belly up. Another first round pick, LB Tom Ruud, also held out for months. Oh, yeah, and in the era of pre-unrestriced free agency as we know it today, even the best players were cheap, especially compared to the owners' profit. It took strikes in 1974 and 1982 as well as a lock out by the owners in 2011 in order for ordinary players to get better wages and benefits, and numerous court challenges that culminated in modern unrestricted free agency in 1992 that enabled the best players to have big pay days.

Exactly this. Ralph Wilson ran his team as a business with the goal of making money. Like many business owners, he watched his bottom closely. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a generous philanthropist in the tradition of other tough businessmen like John D Rockefeller or Henry Ford.

Good points, especially about the problems faced by tall QBs. People, including QBs, can and frequently do learn to control their tempers, especially as they mature. What QBs can't learn to do is process/translate what they see into action faster than they naturally do. They simply can't adjust to the speed of the pro game. It doesn't appear that QBs can significantly change/improve their throwing motions, their ball placement, or their ability to see the field, either. All of these things contribute far more to a QB's success or failure than whether he has a temper -- or whether he's only 6' tall rather than 6'2" or 6'8".

That's true, but that's like saying being black held back Satchel Paige because segregation in baseball forced him to play nearly all of his career in the Negro baseball leagues rather than in the majors (Satchel). Being black didn't affect how Paige played, just where he played and the length of his MLB career. Flutie's height was the same way. Flutie was absolutely great in the CFL, and he proved to be pretty good in the NFL in his very limited opportunities. He was certainly much better than the conventionally tall Rob Johnson. Personally, whether the Bills get him or not (I hope they do), I hope Mayfield tears up the league. Maybe having 3 great short QBs in the league at the same time would wake up these FO folks to realize that there's more to being a QB than simply size and arm strength!

Excuse me, but they did. Cleveland has drafted 3 or 4 QBs in the first round since 2005. The Bills drafted Losman in the first round in 2004 and then drafted EJ Manuel in 2013. They all busted. How come Miami has only made the playoffs once since they drafted Tannehill? How come the Chargers haven't made the playoffs in several years despite having Rivers? Y'know what the real common denominator is about teams breaking perpetual losing cycles? It's FO and coaching! The Vikings haven't had a bonafide top QB since Brett Favre retired, and yet they continue to make the playoffs. They made the playoffs with first round bust Christian Ponder as their QB. They went to the NFC Championship last year with their backup QB as their starter almost the entire season. YOU look at Philly and LAR. Goff was considered a likely bust off his play as a rookie. Despite having some decent talent, the Rams had sucked for years under Jeff Fisher. New FO, new coaching staff, and voila! the Rams are now the power in the NFC West. Wentz was decent as a rookie QB, but he really came into his own in 2017, but when he went down in November, almost everybody figured that the Eagles were done. They limped into the playoffs with a backup QB, but the Philly coaching staff worked with him and got him prepped for the playoffs -- and they created a masterful game plan to beat the Patriots. Without McVay and Pederson, it's likely Goff resembles Losman and Wentz resembles Tannehill more than they do the best looking young QBs to come into the league since 2012. It seems to me that the Bills have, for the first time since Bill Polian left, a FO and a coaching staff that's committed to winning. I don't think "tanking" for the slim chance of being able to pick a collegiate QB as their "savior" is in Beane and McDermott's DNA even if it's in yours. It's not in the DNA of any team that consistently wins and makes the post season and sometimes the Super Bowl. They play every game to win unless it's at the very end of the season, and they can't better their playoff slots. That's how NE plays the game. That's how Philly and Pittsburgh and Minnesota and Green Bay and Seattle and Carolina play the game. That's how the Bills need to play the game, too.

And what would be your suggestion for 2020 or 2021 or 2022 if all of the first round QBs in this draft bust, including the Bills #1 pick? Tank again? And again? In case you haven't noticed, perpetual losing too often becomes a cycle that's almost impossible to break as the Cleveland Browns (2005-?), Detroit Lions (2001-2009), Arizona Cardinals (1999-2006), Tampa Bay Bucs (1982-1996), Buffalo Bills (2005-2013) etc

If he's as good as advertised, then his height won't matter. It hasn't held Brees or Wilson back. It didn't hold Flutie back, either. The only red flag on Mayfield really is his height. Of course, being really tall didn't do much for Mike Glennon or Brock Osweiler.

It seems to me that the definition of a "franchise QB" is much like Justice Potter Stewart's view of pornography ... paraphrased: "I can't define it but I know it when I see it."

^^^ By your definition, SoCalDeek, Ryan Tannehill is a franchise QB and Blake Bortles will likely become one after 2018 barring some unforeseen circumstance simply because they were first round picks and their teams had no one better. Neither one is a "bad QB" on the level of a Joey Harrington, JaMarcus Russell or EJ Manuel, but neither has been "good enough" to truly secure the starting position since rumors persist that Miami is looking to replace Tannehill, and Bortles had to fight in training camp in 2017 to keep his job as starter. I sure wouldn't consider either a franchise QB at this point, although they're probably both decent starters. BTW, Mark Sanchez started for four years for the Jests and even received a contract extension after his second or third season. If the Jests hadn't had a major regime change that resulted in them sacking their GM and HC (every Bills fan's fave, Rex Ryan) after the 2012 season, Sanchez would have undoubtedly been the Jests' starter in 2013 as well. So, yeah, sometimes teams do keep a bad QB as a starter years longer than they should simply because they have too much invested in them or they can't find anybody better.

No, we won't because he's not really leaving. Maybe it was that Russell kid that Seattle drafted in the third round about 5 years ago ... after all, the Seahags didn't make the playoffs last season, so it must have been because their short QB played lousy.

Promises, promises, promises. Too bad you won't keep them. Guaranteed, if the Bills draft any QB in 2018, if he becomes even a modest success, you'll be here singing his praises, and if the Bills draft somebody other than your faves, you'll be here with "I told you sos". Of course, if the Bills draft one of your faves and he sucks, you'll whine and complain and claim they should have taken whatever 2018 QB might happen to actually turn out to be a success. BTW, Rob Johnson, Drew Bledsoe, JP Losman, Ryan Fitzpatrick, EJ Manuel, and Kyle Orton were neither "undersized" nor "running QBs" ... and they all "sucked" according to the Bills faithful such as yourself although to be truthful, Bledsoe didn't suck at all.

I didn't include any QBs drafted after 2014 because I don't think they've had enough time to prove themselves one way or another. (FTR, I always want QBs to have at least 3 seasons of starting). I also didn't include Mariota and Trubisky. Yeah, Wentz looks good and makes Philly look great to trade up to get him, but he has to come back from his knee, and he also needs to continue to improve his game. However, Mariota remains a modest success at best. If a team had traded a fortune of picks to move up to draft him, would they think they got their money's worth? Even if you include both Mariota and Wentz, that's all of 5 successes, some only modest, out of 9 QBs or 56%. That's only slightly better than the percentage for all first round QBs. Of course, 10 of the 12 QBs taken #1 between 2000 and 2016 have had at least modest success, for 83%, so my premise remains correct: it's only the statistical success of the #1 picks that makes the "top five" QBs look like such statistical good bets. As always, whether to take a QB or not, and especially whether to trade up or not, doesn't depend upon statistics but on individuals. If the QB the Bills want is available and they trade up to get him on draft day, that's okay. If they trade up to any position except #1 before the draft, that's stupid.