Mark Long Beach

Yeah, except that it means that they also like him. We did it with George Wilson and he's developed into great depth and now our starting SS. He may only make the PS, I suspect that has mostly to do with special teams performance. That's often the tipping point on the bottom of the roster guys. I'm guessing PS this year.

Ah. That's the biggest key. I think he'd be a tremendous upgrade as our 3rd swing tackle (or starting RT) IF he's healthy. If he's not or likely a high risk of not being so, I agree we should pass.

Maybin, McCargo & even Whitner were prime examples of reaching to fill a need rather than drafting for NFL talent. I do believe that the Bills had a big need for a new Safety when DJ came into town and made us a Tampa-2 team. Obviously we've needed good DLinemen for quite a while. By drafting for a position means we missed out on so many higher quality players and it's a little sickening. I liked the IDEA of drafting a pass rusher, I think we were all in favor of that. It was just the guy they chose. I think that it was made even worse by their higher opinion of smaller quicker guys. Whitner had a fine size for a safety, but Maybin & McCargo were smaller. Their speed edge negated by the higher quality of competition at the pro level. Both of them also had GIANT red flags that should have warned about drafting them as high as they ended up being drafted. Third best DL on a non-dominant college team? One year wonder whose sacks came only against weaker competition? Sigh. Unfortunately it was not just the first round picks that trended towards smaller "faster" guys and our defense has suffered accordingly. So far, I'm much happier with Nix's drafts. I'm often surprised a little by the direction he chooses, but I really feel that he's much more consistent with going for the best player available (even if it's not always who WE feel is the BPA). We're also so much bigger in player size. I'm always a little suprised watching Merriman getting interviewed at how big and thick he looks. Reminds me of Takeo from many years ago. It's such a far cry from our undersized LB corp of recent days (maybin, Ellison, digorgio, Wire, etc.) May his strategy pay off better than what gave us Mr. Maybin.

Nice resurrection. But Greece nailed (half of) it cold. Even though I'm less impressed with Roscoe than Gailey is, he REALLY seems to like him and can get good production out of him. If Roscoe is healthy he's in our top 5. I agree with the comment that one of our 5 wide will often be Spiller/Freddie/(+Smith) since we can flex out a RB to a WR forcing them to keep more LBs in and helping us get mismatches.

Yup. Same speed & same routes. (for better or worse) He'll likely keep the speed this year too. But for how long? I also wish nothing but the best for Lee except for when he's playing us!

Preseason games are to help find out who of the young guys can play when it matters, and fine tuning what still needs to be practiced. Other than that it's just a glorified practice. The final score doesn't matter, but some of the play does. Each preseason game & practice we go through without a significant injury is a good day. Especially for us since our depth is suspect. This game in particular was a big worry for me since it was the first full speed game against a new opponent. With such a short off-season and so many young players on our team it could have been a disaster. As it was the Bears lost their top reserve DE on the opening kickoff. I mark it down as a major victory!

Me too. He was night and day different from last year where he was invisible. Jasper was large, and stood up a lot of OL but struggled to disengage. I only saw one play that he got a nice push.

Absolutely. The rest was pretty chaotic, with lots of mistakes. Our depth played like they were young and still confused or outmatched. Still saw some interesting plays and players. So I was glad that I watched it all. Although in the 4th Q my attention wandered.

Seriously people. It's PRESEASON for an established veteran player. He's not fighting to make the squad. Yes his tackle sucked. Saw it live. Knew right away he made the decision to play it safe rather than play hard. We're talking about _practice_!

You are the wind beneath my wings.

It's just our first preseason game. More precisely: If he can't do it against their 2nd team offense in their first (disorganized) action, then he never will.

Well, lets see... Off the top of my head: Steve Johnson 3 rounds later than 4th.

I don't often agree with you Dawgg, but I think you summed this one up perfectly.

Also likely is that Baltimore & Arizona weren't really looking for a WR until they've gone to camp and played their first preseason game and found that they don't have enough. Suddenly they need one and are willing to give up a draft pick for a 30yo WR that had 40 catches last year...

Straight up hilarious! Well done.

Yep, that's why I think that this WASN'T a financial decision. I'm interpreting that they feel that Lee is a good player but not a perfect fit for what they're tying to do and they've got a logjam of (potential) players at the WR position. They got something for Lee when they likely couldn't next year. I think that it's faith that at least one of our young guys can step up to be opposite Stevie J. We really haven't been getting great production out of Lee...

Agreed. Although I'm an U of Illinois graduate so I still pay attention to the players there. I never got the vibe that he was a Nix kind of guy.

Interesting reaction KFBD. I'm curious if you'll still think this way in a couple days after the shock wears off. I like Lee and will miss him, but this has more hallmarks of a football move than a non-football move. Lee's salary is chickenfeed right now. I read that we should have already paid $1.5 mil roster bonus for this year. link: http://www.buffalorumblings.com/2011/3/29/2077578/lee-evans-dwan-edwards-roster-bonuses With his relatively low salary for a starting WR not the primary driver it looks more like a move to give more spots & playing time to the younger players. Lee hasn't meshed well with Fitz nor with Gailey's offense. The last two years he's averaged 550yards and under 5 TDs per season. Pretty crummy overall stats. He's not valueless by any stretch, but he hasn't been good either. We gain a roster spot and we gain playing time for a WR that should fit better with our O. That's what we gained. We also got value for a 30 year old speed WR who will lose a step in a year or two. Next year he might have NO value...

Definitely an upgrade for our division. Hangartner is an great BACKUP, and he'd be a decent to good starter in a (different) division where there are a lot of 4-3s and/or weaker DTs.

Oh yes, it's EARLY. But a lot of people expected him to be a first year starter. It's difficult in general for a rookie to start, but the big worries about him before the draft look like valid concerns. This post is just an update for those who were interested in ILBs before the draft. IMO, he's closer to a Maybin type draft pick, where exceptional athleticism overshadows weaker skills & production. But at only a 3rd rounder that's closer to where these types of gambles should be taken and not at the top of the 1st.

Nix is trying to remove the stink of losing. He's removed almost all of our players from the previous regimes save a few talented guys and some standup guys. I think Lee was a standup guy, but his production has been poor lately. We may have some young talent so he's gambling that one of them can step up.

Hoped for a 4th. Dreamed for a 3rd. I like Lee, a good guy and a decent player. But frankly we've not been all that successful with him and he doesn't fit well with our QB or our system. He's only got 2 years of solid production left which isn't in our window. We have a lot of young guys who look like they might step up. (fingers crossed) We'd lose one or two of them if we kept Lee. I think that it hurts us this year but is better for us overall. How much it hurts this year I don't know. Maybe not all that much.

A lot of people wanted us to draft the ILB from Illinois in the second round. He ended up going in the 3rd to the Saints 4 picks after we picked up ILB Kelvin Shepard. Apparently is struggling at camp and definitely won't be a starter (from nfl nation blog- Camp Confidential Saints): Obviously it's early, but there were a couple reports on him that I read that he was a great athlete and a real boom or bust kind of guy. I figured he wasn't on our list (and apparently wasn't since we passed him in the second & third round and picked a different ILB). But he was "ranked" by a lot of draft journals as "better" than KS. It seems our draft philosophy is to draft the "athletes only" type in the late rounds and pick high productivity guys early.

Awesome! Thank you. As someone said before: You da beard!

unless injury occurs.