jahnyc

Fair comments to my original post, but I don't remember there being a lot of interest in Anderson from other teams and the Patriots were not aggressive in trying to re-sign him. Also, a $3 million cap hit next year is not insignficant and it never looks good, particularly to players, when you sign a guy and then release him after one season.

Signing Anderson was one of many bad decisions by Nix. It will be interesting to see whether Doug Whaley is an improvement over Nix, but I was really hoping for a clean break from Nix and his staff.

Didn't we see the Dallas draft board a few years ago and Troup had a 4th round grade?

I am happy that there is a new defensive coordinator. I think our defensive play calling and scheme cost us last year in a big way. I also like Woods. I was hoping the Bills would draft him. He appears to be NFL ready. The Bills will miss Levitre and possibly Gailey's offensive scheme. Not sure if the Bills have improved overall in terms of talent, but the key will be whether EJ can develop into a franchise QB. I hope the Bills will be competitive this year. If EJ shows promise and improvement, that would go a long way to creating some optimism about the team's future.

So who are our DEs in this defense? Does Dareus get moved to DE? K. Williams?

1. It will be interesting to see how the safety position plays out. Two safeties drafted, so there are now five drafted safeties on the roster (Byrd, Williams, Searcy and the two draft picks). I assume the Bills are preparing for the possibility that they will not be able to re-sign Byrd. The Bills must be confident that he will sign his tender since I expect that they would have traded him before/during the draft if they thought otherwise. I am starting think he plays for the Bills one more year and then is traded. 2. No offensive or defensive linemen were drafted by the Bills in this draft. I think we are okay at DT (with the addition of Branch), but no so sure about DE. I don't think that Anderson is an every down player. For the o-line, I am surprised that the Bills did not draft a guard. I think the loss of Levitre will be felt even more now. I wonder if the Bills believe that they will be able to re-sign Woods. If not, I would have thought that they would have drafted a guard/center prospect. 3. As others have noted, seemed like in this draft (and even with undrafted free agents) the Bills were willing to take/sign players with character concerns. 4. The Bills continue to draft players higher than they are expected to be drafted. (2010--Troup, 2011--Sheppard, and 2012--Graham). This year, EJ, Alonso and Meeks all were drafted by the Bills earlier than anticipated by most draft "experts." I would say the Bills misfired with Troup and Sheppard. We will see about Graham and this year's group. 5. Not sure I understand that Goodwin pick with Graham already on the roster. Seem like very similar players. It will be interesting to see what happens with Brad Smith. Very professional and well liked, but not sure how he fits at this point. Really liked the Woods pick. I think he will provide the most immediate contribution of this class of picks. 6. Still have some big holes. Very surprised that no CB was taken. Same with LG and TE (at least until the seventh round, and he is more of an H-back).

I really do not get this thread. It was great that the Bills picked up another second round pick in a draft in which the top 15 was considered weak compared to previous years. It also is a good sign that the pick by the Bills was not telegraphed. Maybe the front office learned something after the emabarassment of the taping of Buddy's call with the Tampa Bay GM. As to the pick itself, who knows if EJ will become a quality QB. The experts who did not like the pick will only be embarassed if EJ actually develops. If they are upset because the Bills were giving misinformation as to who they were interested in, that is just plain stupid. Every team does this prior to the draft. What I don't understand is why people are so angry with the experts. Many of them don't like the pick, and their grades are some of the worst I can remember for a first round pick by the Bills. The front office and EJ need to prove them wrong. I have no confidence in this front office, so I have my doubts. Maybe it is appropriate to ignore guys like McShay, but I did not like the reaction to the pick by Polian and others who have significant experience in the NFL assessing talent.

I have a feeling it will be a WR and then a CB. Woods and then Banks or Taylor. TE in the third round.

Love the Bills and glad that we traded down, but I really do not like this pick. Always trying to be smarter than the other teams and the experts. It never works.

For our first pick, the top talent does not match our needs particularly well. I would rather take Warmack or Cooper (guard is a need) in the first round, players that have a higner probability of being very good players, versus a QB, who may have less than a 50-50 chance of developing into a starting caliber QB.

It seems like there are mixed reactions to this, but this seems kind of negative to me. Either he is trying to use whatever leverage he has to push the Bills to give him a long-term deal (which would not be bad news) or he wants out.

Not sure what I am missing here, but if you look at Buddy's drafting for the offense over the three years he has been the GM, the only starters from his picks are Spiller and Glenn (at least so far), right? Not very good.

The 2009 draft redo is worse. Elliot Harrison from NFL.com has us taking Orakpo instead of Maybin. Many of us wanted Orakpo in that draft.

Does this make any sense if we take a qb in the first round? Maybe the Bills think the best bet this year is to draft a qb in the later rounds (a development guy with potential). Otherwise, signing Kolb and keeping Jackson does not make any sense to me.

I was really happy that the Bills signed M. Williams last year, but in hindsight, it was not a good move. It may be worth it to spend that kind of money on a player if it puts you over the top (i.e., into the playoffs), but otherwise, it does not make sense, particularly this year when certain free agents experienced a tough market and lower contract amounts. M. Williams counts more than $18 million against the cap next year (2014) and is due a $10.5 million roster bonus. This is a killer. For this amount, we could sign three high quality free agents. We also overpaid for McKelvin. There was a glut of free agent cbs, and many are still available. I know that we all want to attract quality but bargain priced free agents, but it will be difficult to get some of them to come to Buffalo. The team likely will not be good this year, and if you are a wide receiver or TE, why would you come to a team without a QB (you would want to have good stats wherever you go so that if you sign a one year deal, you will be more attractive the next year in free agency).

Based on the free agents available, what we have in T. Jackson, and the QBs that will be drafted this year, I think the best option for this season would be to sign Carson Palmer and draft a QB after the first round this year. I understand that Palmer would be a stog gap, but I think he is better than our other available options (certainly better than T. Jackson), and I am getting the sense that this is a below average group of QBs available in the draft. I also understand that Palmer may go to Arizona, but if he gets cut by the Raiders, the Bills should try to sign him.

I also was hoping the Bills would try to sign Myers.

If McKelvin can develop into a solid starting caliber CB, then his contract is not unreasonable. But this really is the question. He has had five years to develop, and he has not to this point. Maybe it was coaching, we will see, and clearly he should get more dollars for his special teams play, but I have my doubts that he will end up being a starter. If this is the case, then the Bills overpaid. With regard to Fitz, we can all agree that an upgrade at QB is desperately needed. I have no illusions that Fitz would suddenly develop into a quality starter with a new coaching staff. Would the Bills have been better off with Fitz (at a much reduced price) competing with a rookie draft choice instead of Jackson? Who knows, but my view is that it would have made more sense to keep Fitz over Jackson. Of course this assumes that the Bills could have reached an agreement with Fitz, which may not have been possible, especially after the Deadspin thing. I certainly do not like what the Bills have done in free agency so far. This may change after we know what changes are made and players are added, but with a lot of holes and only six draft picks, it seems they much work to do.

Many of the teams that have not been particularly active in free agency (i.e., Dallas, Washington, Pittsburgh, Carolina, New Orleans and Houston) have significant cap issues. Cinci and Jacksonville have cap space and have done little so far.

Of course I have no idea what the Bills the are doing or thinking, but I would note the following: 1. Signing M. Williams to a huge deal last year looks stupid in light of the number of DEs that were available this year and the contracts that these free agents are getting now. I would argue that a strong front office will assess current needs and availability (in the draft and in free agency) as well as future needs and availability. 2. Signing McKelvin at the start of free agency for the amount of money he received was a significant misjudgment of the market for CBs. Many CBs have been (and continue to be) available, some who are more likely to be quality starters than McKelvin. 3. The front office should have realized that cutting Fitz would add to the negatives (i.e., no starting caliber QB) in trying to attract and sign free agents. Instead, the Bills should have used money for free agency to re-sign Levitre, who had indicated interest in staying with the Bills. 4. Why do the Bills wait so long to try to re-sign their own players? Signing Byrd will now cost them much more money based on the deals that some of the free agent safeties have received this offseason. Would Levitre have agreed to less than what he ultimately received from the Titans if the Bills had tried to sign him during last season? 5. Now that the Bills have cut Fitz and only have T. Jackson, it is obvious that the Bills will be drafting a QB in this year's draft. Other GMs know this, and if they are interested in a QB, they know that they may need to move ahead of the Bills. Having all of the NFL teams know what you need to do in the draft is not a good thing. This is a very weak draft for QBs, and the Bills have no choice but to draft one early. Last year was the year to draft a QB, another front office misjudgment.

They should give us some picks out of pity.

I do not know, but I bet Buffalo reached out to a bunch of free agents and they chose to visit and sign with other teams. Some of the NFL "gossip" sites are unreliable, but some did say that Buffalo had contacted the agents for Landry, DeVito, Keller, Vasquez and others. Who knows what really is going on.

Would have felt better if they had re-signed Levitre. If they can't get free agents to sign, the better strategy would have been to keep Levitre.

They will try to sell us a rookie QB taken in the first round of the draft. At this point, it is their only option, and it is unfortunate that the Bills will be forced to make this pick in a year where there are probably no first round quality QBs (even Jim Kelly agrees with this). If you look on Buffalobills.com, they are already hyping a pre-draft, in person visit with Geno Smith. This is all they have.

The Kaye Stephenson and Hank Bullough years were rough. Gregg Williams' first year was also pretty bad. It was hard watching Ferragamo/Mathison, Holcomb and AVP. Looking forward to adding Jackson to this list.