Mark Long Beach

Agreed that CB play stunk and that CB was a major need. I don't agree that Drayton was clearly our best CB. He was worse than McGee (when McGee was actually on the field) and about even with Williams. With Drayton getting a year older (in the over-30 danger zone for quick twitch positions) and Williams not a rookie anymore I would expect Williams to be a good chunk better than Drayton this year. We had 7+ Conerbacks. We were going to have to cut one. With poor play, wrong side of 30, high salary and doesn't play special teams, I think it was an easy choice. The Bills clearly felt so too given how fast they did it.

First guy that I thought of. Then thought: A punter is one of my favorite players for my team? Man, it's been a rough last decade.

Nice! Only 26 posts? You clearly need to post more often.

To save some people a lookup: Drew Coleman is a CB who played only 1 year with the Jags and the previous 5 with the Jets. Nickle only type player. Seems like a better player than Corner, and better run support, but can't play outside. I think we're pretty deep at CB right now, and we'll probably have to cut a good player. Well, since I'm rooting for McKelvin to be cut "Good" is in quotes.

I sure don't watch college punters. What I've read about Anger is that he has exceptional directional punting ability & placement. Lots of punts pinning opponents close to the endzone. That's much more useful than just a big leg booming a punt from their own territory. Actually, since their QB is Gabbert, they probably will be sending lots of punts from deep in their own territory!

We still have a lot of holes that we MAY have filled or may have an adequate player in. But we're still counting on a fair number of players to get much better then they've shown to be so far. Weaknesses: Backup QB: Thigpen put up some credible numbers in KC one year in a Gailey customized offense, but 54% completion & 1-11 w/l record doesn't impress. His short appearances here in Buffalo are not reassuring. I'd like to see this position have someone who has a chance to lead the team to victory, not a warm body. Our QB3 is a wr/wildcat guy, and our "development" QB is an undrafted rookie with an unimpressive college resume. LT: Glenn is a highly drafted rookie with promise, but there are a fair number of professional evaluators who doubt he can play the position well. Our other choice is last year's 4th round pick (Hairston, previously described as a right tackle per Gailey)who played for a few games to cover up injury before HE got injured. He played during a stretch where the Bills stunk and was given plenty of help. Is Nix right that Glenn can play LT? Can Hairston play as an LT for an extended period of time? The other option is a 5th round rookie, who's a long shot for him to start/play well this year. Levitre is not the answer. This could be a much rougher season if we're rotating a bunch of poor LT's around looking for competent play. MLB: We're starting a 3rd round pick from last year. Sheppard showed some nice things and a bunch of not-so-nice things. Can he recognize better and play better than his rookie year? Hopefully, but no guarantee. If he doesn't, our run defense will likely be weak like last year as we have nothing but some low round draft picks behind him. OLB: Barnett played quite well, and I like him. He's no sure thing to make it through the season like he did last year and our depth is suspect to say the least. A big reason he was released from the Packers was that 2 out of the prior 3 years he was seriously injured and missed a total of 19 games. Morrison is our presumed starter on the other side. While Morrison has had productive seasons in the past (5 years with 100+ tackles with the Raiders) he did very poorly in his one year with the Jags and nothing with us last year. I think a lot of his problems were miss-use but he's definitely in the starter-ish quality range. As many have noted, the weaker of Morrison or Sheppard will be pulled out for 40% of the snaps when we're in our Nickle formation. Our big problem is that the only depth is low round rookies and previous low round converted DE's, who have shown nearly nothing. WR2: We have essentially 3 players fighting it out for this role (the rest of the lot are pretty much never-were's). Newly drafted TJ Graham who's very fast but raw; previous 4th round raw WR: Marcus Easley who has a bunch of people excited from what he's done in practice, but hasn't played a game in either year he's been in the league; and lastly incumbent Donald Jones who underwhelmed in his opportunity last year. In DJ's 7 games started he's averaged 3.3 catches/game for 33 yds/game and showed little game-changing ability and got injured twice. It was only DJ's second year, and the coaches liked what they saw in practice, but it never really showed during game-time. TJG's speed will likely make him a useful situational player to draw cb's deep. It's hard for me to believe that he will be a meaningful starter in his rookie year. As for Easley, teammates have said many good things about him from offseason work and practice time but he's never been able to show it on the field. He was very raw coming out of college, but has worked hard. Is he a practice player or a gamer? No idea. TE2: Chandler was a nice surprise and showed that he can be a threat in the redzone, which is a nice ability. Unfortunately he got hurt and showed that nobody behind him was worth a hoot. We've added only an undrafted FA to our stable of 2 undrafteds (Caussin & Brock), a 5th in Smith and a 6th in Onabon. The most catches that any of our backup TE's have is FIVE. ALL of our TE's have been released by other teams, we have NO TE's that we've spent a SINGLE draft pick on. It shows just how weak this position is. As I see it we've two starting positions (WR2, MLB) in which we hope a low/low-ish draft pick can step up and be an adequate or better starter. The rest of the starting positions not named above I view as having at least decent+ quality with decent+ backups. Last year's significant weakness of depth has been filled with rookies. Hopefully they're better than last years crew of backups. All-in-all, I'm very pleased with the improvements of this team, but we're still counting on Nix's ability to draft contributors. If this crop washes out, a few lost starters could doom our season like last year.

lol

+1

I don't expect Moats nor Batten to make the roster. BUT there are always surprises every year.

I do agree with you that TT & AC meet the basic sniff test for Nix. If they didn't I doubt very seriously that they'd have been drafted, and Nix was the guy who pulled the trigger. What many of us are arguing is that the shift into a full Nix-ian type draft didn't take place in his first year (3 months before the draft after much of that draft's work had been done). He still had Modrak, we didn't have Whaley, we hadn't added two scouts and rearranged a couple others and NIX didn't set the priorities and work styles that have since changed. (scouts cross-referencing each other & cross referencing position) I don't see why this is hard to find reasonable that there will be a difference between the transition year and subsequent years. Especially since, as the OP pointed out, the draft LOOKS very different. As for TTroup/ACarrington, Nix still could have drafted them, but maybe a round later where they may still have been available because perhaps with their modern drafting department, they had another player ranked a little more properly that Nix believed in. Who knows, but not wildly out of the question either.

amen!

Excellent way to start the morning! Oh, it's afternoon? ..Just what have I been doing??

Yup, I also wondered if he really meant Quick. Buddy seems to reel out just a little bit of information but not necessarily the whole story. I'm surprised that clearly untrue declaration about Martin doesn't get more press. IMO Buddy thought that there was little chance that Martin was going to be there, and/or that he would seed the idea that teams looking for a T should pick him over the guy that they really wanted in Glenn (who they clearly chose over Martin).

Georgia's line was getting blown up all over the place, except Cordy Glenn. He wasn't perfect by any means. But he had way more really good plays than bad ones.

He'll get his shot to show what he's got. That's all one can really ask for.

My impression as well.

practice squad is likely.

a little disappointed. If he was our 7th rounder, I wouldn't think he'd make the roster.

The first two rounds of this draft have been amazing! This whole off-season has been crazy good!

except your sig line says 4th. ;-) ps: I'm a fan of Wilson, but I think that 3rd is too high. We'd like a potential starter there. Wilson has high bust potential. I also think that Nix is a BIG proponent of physical size. The only reason that we might draft him is that Buddy is also a big proponent of production. Wilson sure had that. (We did bring him in for an interview, one of the only, so we might draft him!)

Buddy said that the Bills had MANY more offers to trade up than to trade down. I'm sure there were lots of teams willing to fish around to see if anyone would give them a boatload of picks ala Cleveland. That's hardly a good deal, and I wouldn't even count those.

+2

Vontaze Burfict as a mid-second rounder? he's off the board for many teams.

+1