Orton's Arm

Listen to while reading the below lyrics: I've stopped trying, don't you see the look in my eyes And I've stopped begging the officials. I've run out of lies Stop hoping I'll win in the end We don't have a chance. There's no need to pretend Don't call me Brady Don't call me Brady Anymore I've stopped running cause I've run out of time So stop asking 'cause you know all the reasons why Stop staring through me like you know who I am You don't know me, you don't know me, barely knew me then And don't call me Brady Don't call me Brady Anymore Hey, hey, hey, walking away now, walking away now Brady Hey, hey, hey, walking away now, walking away now Brady Don't call my number Our reign is over Don't call me Brady Anymore What am I gonna do with myself? What am I gonna do? What am I going to say this time I have no excuse I've lost all heart My team's gonna break My will is broken too Stop staring through me like you know who I am When you don't know me, you don't know me, barely knew me then And don't call me Brady Don't call me Brady Anymore Hey, hey, hey, walking away now, walking away now Brady Hey, hey, hey, walking away now, walking away now Brady Don't call my number Our reign is over Don't call me Brady Anymore

Good post. I agree that Harbaugh would be a better hire than Frazier, for the reasons you described.

I'm a Bills fan. I wouldn't know.

First, I agree you can't run an organization by committee. That's just ridiculous. But if you're going to have one person be the head guy, the onus is on that guy to make the right decisions. Let's look at how TD used his first round draft picks: 2001: Nate Clements. Result: first contract and out. 2002: Mike Williams. Result: bust. 2003 a. Traded for Drew Bledsoe. Result: Bledsoe was released after three years. 2003 b: Willis McGahee. Result: failed to provide a significant upgrade over Travis Henry. After a few years, he was traded for two third round picks. 2004 a: Lee Evans. Result: a good WR, but not necessarily as good as you'd expect from a guy picked 13th overall. 2004 b: You know who. Result: bust. 2005: none. There's only one success story on that list: the Lee Evans pick. Is TD really the guy you want running your franchise? And look at the team he built (or tried to build, at any rate). Marv inherited a team with no starting-quality offensive linemen other than Jason Peters. Even Peters was more a case of good luck than good decision-making. TD initially signed Peters as an UDFA. And later released him. Then re-signed him. Within two or three years, all the starting offensive linemen from the TD era had been released. Again except for Peters, who was traded away. Then look at the quarterback situation Marv inherited: the Losman/Holcomb controversy. Just what every head coach and general manager dreams of! Finally, look at the defensive line: other than Aaron Schobel, what players were there? In the three most critical areas--OL, DL, and QB--TD found just two players (Schobel and Peters). The team Marv inherited also had holes at #2 WR, TE, LB, and elsewhere. I'll grant that Marv also did a lousy job as GM, but that's a subject for another post.

There are people within the Cardinals organization--players, other coaches, etc.--who are counting on Grimm to do the best possible job he can between now and his team's game. Interviews for head coaching positions can take many hours. His schedule is going to be very tight between now and the game.

There was nothing "great" about the Truman presidency.

I agree with this. A great QB behind a competent line will achieve more than a competent QB behind a great line. (See Dilfer of the Ravens--who played behind Ogden at LT--as an example of the latter situation.) I also agree that one shouldn't reach for a player based on need. The strategy of honing in on one specific position got us Donte Whitner, John McCargo, etc.

But look at the three quarterbacks in question. It wasn't exactly as though the Ravens of 2000 won that Super Bowl on the arm of Trent Dilfer and the strength of the passing game. Dilfer played better than some people gave him credit for, granted, but you wouldn't exactly call him franchise material. Brad Johnson was a step up from Dilfer, and it was highly anomalous that the Vikings replaced/released a quarterback of that caliber when he was in the prime of his career. It was also very strange that Dan Snyder forced the Redskins to choose Jeff George over Johnson. But even at his best, Johnson was no more than an above-average quarterback. He was no longer fully in his prime by the time he got to Tampa. The Bucs won the Super Bowl mostly on the strength of their defense. Kurt Warner also led his team to a Super Bowl win within the last ten years. He played ridiculously well that year, as though he was trying to show Hall of Fame quarterbacks what a real quarterback looks like! There's no question the Rams got better play from the QB position than they could possibly have hoped for. But how often does some guy bagging groceries or playing in the Arena League turn into a Hall of Fame quarterback? It's great when something like that happens, but I can't think of very many recent Kurt Warner stories. Except, of course, Kurt Warner's. The early part of the first round is a more reliable way to get a top-tier quarterback than using a sixth round pick in the hopes of the next Tom Brady, or signing some guy at the grocery store in hopes of the next Kurt Warner. Teams should still be open to finding hidden gems like Brady or Warner, and not just at the quarterback position. But to rely on a "draft a QB in the sixth round/get the next Brady" strategy would be . . . reckless at best.

What position do you think is a sure thing in the first round? The last two times the Bills used first round picks on defensive ends, they got Aaron Maybin and Erik Flowers. (Not that Maybin is necessarily a bust--or a defensive end, for that matter.) The last time the Bills used a first round pick on a defensive tackle, they got John McCargo. The last two times the Bills used first round picks on defensive backs, they got Leodis McKelvin and Donte Whitner. It's too soon to determine if McKelvin is a bust, but the same can't be said of Whitner. The last time the Bills used a first round pick on an offensive tackle, they ended up with Mike Williams. The last time the Bills used a first round pick on a running back, they ended up with Marshawn Lynch. Anyone who thinks there's such a thing as a risk-free position to pick in the first round is fooling himself. The selection of any player, at any position, represents a calculated risk. Some risks are more worth taking than others. For a team to be a serious threat in the playoffs, it needs game changers. If a player has little chance of being a game-changer (as was the case with Whitner), there's insufficient potential upside to balance out the risk that he'll be a bust. Conversely, a quarterback who demonstrates the accuracy and mental bandwidth to eventually play at a Pro Bowl level has very significant upside, and is typically a risk well worth taking.

Gregg Williams and Mike Mularkey now have previous head coaching experience, and therefore meet the one criterion you seem most focused on. Not that I would suggest hiring either of them! There's no shame in hiring a guy without previous head coaching experience, especially if the alternative is a former head coach who's proven himself to be mediocre.

A lot of good suggestions, albeit laced on occasion with a hint of cynicism.

There were several reasons why the defense looked as good as it did: Schobel and Kelsay played better than usual this year. The defensive secondary is good and deep. Byrd started the season as a backup! The defense faced a lot of second- or third-rate offenses. Any time you're going up against the likes of Derek Anderson, in extremely lousy weather conditions no less, it's not going to be too difficult to look good against the pass. Add to that two games against the rookie Sanchez . . . This defense has its weaknesses. The DBs often play soft coverage, so to beat it you use a "death by a thousand small cuts" offense. And you work the intermediate passing game over the middle. However, the offenses the Bills have faced have (typically) not been good enough to do those things well on a consistent basis. Those weaknesses were more visible in past years (when we often faced better offenses).

We need to come up with a theme song for our new GM. I suggest . (Well, the first half of the commercial anyway.)

Thanks for this information. The rumor I heard about Brohm having only one read was something I'd read on these boards. I reiterated the rumor here in hopes that other posters might be able to definitively confirm or refute it. If Brohm made multiple reads in college (which running a pro set does not necessarily prove), it would indicate that his chances of becoming a bona fide NFL starter are considerably higher than I had previously believed.

I disagree with your bolded text. Any time you throw a young QB into the fire, without having had the chance to learn the offense, and without pass protection of any kind, . The two differences are that Brohm received worse pass protection than did the rookie Manning, and Brohm had less time to learn the offense than the rookie Manning had. Rather than getting too caught up in Brohm's one game performance as a Bill, or even his time in Green Bay, I'd tend to focus more on his college career. If there's a chance to draft a significantly better college QB than Brohm had been, then by all means the Bills should take advantage of that opportunity. In particular, I've heard a rumor that Brohm's college offense only required him to make one read, and to dump the ball off if that read was covered. If there's an available QB who proved more than Brohm did in college (either by making more reads, or in some other way), the Bills should take him. But if there isn't a guy like that out there, the Bills should go in a different direction with their early draft picks. There'd be no shame in using the 9th overall pick on a LT, then trading back into the first round for a big DT. Under that plan, the Bills would fill two needs at critical positions. They'd start Brohm for 16 games. If he's as bad as some people think, the Bills could easily end up with an early pick in the 2011 draft. That pick could be used on a QB, who might turn out to be a better player than any of the QBs available for the Bills in 2010. If, however, Brohm succeeds, then the Bills could use that pick on some other position. The main pitfall is if Brohm plays somewhere between these two extremes. What we don't want is the next J.P. Losman: a guy who shows just enough flashes to keep getting fed opportunities and chances, but who never does enough to prove he's the answer. A guy like that can be a coach and GM killer, as Losman was.

I'd like to see the Bills avoid taking a LB early in the 2010 draft for two reasons: 1) there are a lot of other, more critical positions that must be addressed in the near future, and 2) there are some possibilities at LB already on this team. DE: Aaron Schobel is contemplating retirement. Even if he sticks around for another year, there's no one on the roster who can take his place when he does hang up his cleats. Guys like Chris Kelsay and Ryan Denney aren't a whole lot younger than he is. We have no young, up-and-coming DEs in the mix. DE is a position of serious long-term need. QB: Unless the Bills see Brohm as a potential long-term answer at QB, the QB position should be addressed in the draft. Not necessarily this year (if there's no one worth taking when we pick) but sooner rather than later. LT: The Bills desperately need to draft a top-tier LT this coming April. DT: As you point out, there's room for improvement at the DT position. Also, Stroud isn't getting any younger, making DT a position of long-term need. As for LB: the Bills have several possibilities there. Maybin might be a better fit as a LB than a DE. Scott has potential to be a reasonably solid LB. There are a few other possibilities in the mix as well. The Bills should give things a year to play out at that position while addressing more critical areas where they know there's a need! Suppose, for example, that at 9th overall the Bills took a stud LT. Then suppose they were to trade away their 2nd and 3rd round picks to get back into the first round to grab a big DT like Cody. Brohm could be given a one year tryout at QB, and Scott, Maybin, or possibly others could be given a tryout at LB, and Steve Johnson a tryout at WR. Cognito could be re-signed, given a starting position at RG, Wood moved to center, and Hangartnar moved to the bench (where he belongs). I'm not saying this would be a perfect solution--some of these experiments will likely fail--but at least it would move the team in the right direction.

Agreed. If we want to hire a coordinator as HC, there are a number of top-tier offensive and defensive coordinators out there. Perry Fewell is not one of them.

Donte Whitner was chosen 8th overall, which makes him the highest draft pick the Bills have had since 2002. High draft position and a high level of scrutiny go together. Any discussion of Marv's drafting failures should begin with Donte Whitner.

I would! Agreed. Either Ngata, Cutler, or trading down with Denver would have represented much better options than using the 8th overall pick on a backup safety.

Then your thinking is wrong! Travis Henry has also rushed for over 1000 yards. Was Henry worth the 11th overall pick? Hint: the answer is no, as we only got a third round pick out of having traded Henry away. He didn't have very many miles on him either. The 11th overall pick is worth fully 6.5 times as much as the 15th pick of the third round! If a RB is fed all or almost all the carries, and if the offense he's on has even some semblance of decency, chances are he'll get 1000 rushing yards. Conversely, if a team adopts a RB by committee approach, a 1000 yard season for an individual RB becomes a much more difficult goal. During the seasons you mentioned, Lynch was generally in the first category; which means that the 1000 yard seasons, in themselves, were not necessarily very impressive accomplishments. Correct: not many. But it's less than obvious that the Bills should have drafted--or even considered drafting--a RB with their first round pick of the 2007 draft anyway. Yards per carry is a far more meaningful stat than total rushing yards. Give a standard-issue RB enough carries, and he will break 1000 yards. Start using RB by committee, and it's very unlikely any one RB will break 1000 yards. That 7-9 record was due to overachievement, stopgap measures, a little luck, and (possibly) an easy schedule (I don't specifically remember). What it was not due to was the existence of a core of good, young players who would form the nucleus of future strong teams. Of the starting players we have today, which ones were on the team in 2005? On offense it's Lee Evans and no one else. On defense it's Kelsay, Schobel, and McGee. Those four guys--plus Jabari Greer, Jason Peters, and Willis McGahee--represent the core of the team that Marv inherited from TD. (I'm excluding Nate Clements, as his contract had already expired under TD's watch.) In 2006, Marv added very little to that core. Not one of his first-day draft selections from 2006 has lived up to his draft position. He partially made up for that on the second day of the draft with guys like Kyle Williams, Keith Ellison, and Brad Butler--who have outplayed their draft position expectations. But most of those second day picks--even including Butler--represent decent players you'd like to someday replace, and not long-term answers to their respective positions. Going into the 2007 draft, there just weren't very many core players on the Bills team. The absence of that core means the team was a long way away from being a serious threat to do something in the postseason, regardless of whatever record it had achieved in 2006. Thanks for the link. But as I'm sure you already know, just because a player hasn't yet made the Pro Bowl, doesn't mean he's necessarily worse than Lynch. For example, Dwayne Bowe, a WR chosen in the first round of 2007's draft by KC, had 995 receiving yards his rookie year and over 1000 his second year. This year he's not doing as well as he has in the past--much like Lynch. But 1000 receiving yards is generally considered more impressive for a WR than 1000 rushing yards is for a RB. The best single season by a WR (I think) was in 1995 by Jerry Rice: 1848 receiving yards over 16 games. In contrast, there have been a few RBs who have rushed for 2000 yards in a season, including one who did so in only 14 games.

First, one expects a top-15 pick to be a game-changer or close to a game-changer. Lynch has clearly not played up to that level over the course of his career. Second, RBs typically have shorter useful careers than most other positions. A rebuilding team--as the Bills were going into the 2007 draft--should not use its first round pick on a RB. That pick should be used on a guy who's expected to have a longer-lasting career than a RB would have. If that guy also happens to play a more critical position than RB, so much the better! Third, Lynch isn't even the best RB on this team. He's good at muscling his way forward for extra yards after contact, but isn't the complete player Fred Jackson is.

This team needs difference-makers: the kinds of players who can change the whole complexion of a game. Typically, teams are most likely to find those difference makers early in the draft. The Bills haven't done that, because we've squandered our first round picks on non-difference makers like Donte Whitner, John McCargo, Marshawn Lynch, (and at least so far) Leodis McKelvin and Aaron Maybin. Now that there's apparently a competent GM in the house, I expect the Bills' track record in the first round to improve. We need to start getting some game-changers in here if this team is going to be a serious postseason threat. Which is why it's too bad that the Bills are going to win this game. Had we gone 1-15, we could have drafted a sure-fire game changer like Suh. But by piling up several meaningless wins, we're going to lose out on players in that tier.

When I'd read your earlier post the first time around, I'd thought you were complaining about NFL players engaging in public displays of faith (praying after TDs, etc.). And I thought to myself, why would this guy complain about that when there are so many more annoying/obnoxious things being done on national TV these days? But in rereading your earlier post, I see that your remarks may have been directed at overly forward spreading of Christianity in general--such as door-to-door evangelization--without touching on anything NFL-specific (such as praying after TDs).

Exactly. This is a meaningless game, other than the opportunity to affect our draft position.

If you don't want stuff thrown in your face repeatedly, you have no business watching national television. Being show the exact same pickup truck/beer ad multiple times within the span of a few minutes is far more obnoxious, insulting, and in-your-face than is some NFL player praying after a touchdown.