Orton's Arm

I'd go further than that, and suggest that he probably should have been picked in the middle of the second round at the earliest. Which was where he was projected to go, at least in some draft publications.

A real fan wants what's best for the long-term interests of his team. A higher draft pick, will, on average, be more useful to that team than a lower draft pick.

I'll grant the truth of your post. But there's a difference. The Vikings got a good player in the form of Favre, but how many years will he give them? One? Two? Three at the very most (and that's probably pushing it). But if you draft a player like Manning or Brady, you get him for his whole career. Getting ten years of elite quarterback play is ten times as good as getting just one year. Another good example of how free agents are generally short-term solutions is our signing of Chris Vilarrial. He was a nasty, tough guard from Chicago. He gave us one good year--one!--before a combination of age and injuries made him a shell of what he once had been. There are a lot of areas on a team--such as offensive line--in which continuity is important, which makes the short clock often associated with free agent signings that much more detrimental.

No it isn't. Elite players almost never hit free agency. Do you think the Colts are going to let Peyton Manning hit free agency while he's still in his prime? Do you think that the New England Patriots will let Tom Brady leave when he's still got some gas left in the tank? On the rare occasions when a top tier player hits free agency, it generally results in a bidding war. Look at Nate Clements, who wasn't even quite top tier! San Francisco clearly overpaid for him, but that's a function of there being too little supply (of players of that caliber) and too much demand. But a Nate Clements level player is typically about the best your team can expect from free agency. Normally, players are allowed to walk for a reason. Head-butting someone. Being too old and too injury prone. Not being a particularly good player in the first place. Being a cancer in the locker room. If a guy doesn't have any negatives associated with him, why would his team let him hit free agency in the first place? Look at the free agents the Bills have signed, for crying out loud! Peerless Price. Tuten Reyes. Melvin Fowler. Langston Walker. Derrick Dockery. Watching the Bills' front office look for free agents is like watching an animal rummage through the feces of some other animal in search of undigested nuts. Yes, there are stories about teams finding such undigested nuts. But they are few and far between. Across the NFL, what were the ten best free agent signings of 2007? How about 2006? What about signings 11 - 20? Is the 20th best free agent signing of 2006 still making a useful contribution to his team? Is he still even with that team? Now compare that to the 20th best draft pick of 2006, who's almost certainty a better player than Donte Whitner. The draft is both better on the high end (Manning and Brady) and deeper than free agency.

Before the Manning/Leaf draft, there was considerable debate about which prospect was better. Manning was labeled the more "polished" and "NFL-ready" passer; whereas Leaf was supposedly the quarterback with more "upside" due to his stronger arm and general physical attributes. Some sports writers implied that a team that wanted a quick fix at the quarterback position would likely take Manning, but a team with a more disciplined, longer-term outlook would accept the delayed gratification of Leaf in order to receive the eventual benefit of that higher upside. In hindsight, that position looks a little silly. Recently, the Falcons took Matt Ryan third overall, and he's turning into a franchise quarterback. Other franchise quarterbacks taken in the top five include Carson Palmer (first overall), and Philip Rivers (fourth overall). Clausen seems like he has the potential to join that category. I agree we shouldn't use a top five pick on Colt McCoy though. The question we have to ask ourselves is, should the Bills consider trading up for a franchise QB like Clausen? I'm not thrilled with that idea, because there are so many other holes on this team (such as offensive line). On the other hand, there aren't very many opportunities to draft franchise QBs. So it's important to take advantage of those opportunities you do have.

I agree with PushthePile here. At the end of the 2001 season, things didn't work out between TD and Rob Johnson. It was said that whatever else he did, TD would not go into the 2002 season with Alex van Pelt as his starting quarterback. So he ended up trading away a first round pick to the New England Patriots for Drew Bledsoe. Not only did that represent the squandering of a first-round pick on a purely short-term solution (for a team in rebuilding mode, no less), but the Patriots turned that first round pick into Richard Seymour! :w00t: Because the Bledsoe trade didn't work out (for Buffalo, at least), TD soon found himself once again in need of a quarterback. His first choice was Ben Roethlisberger, but Houston refused to trade down with us so that we could take him. Instead, he went #11 overall to Pittsburgh, and the Bills took Lee Evans 13th overall. That caused TD to go to his Plan B, which involved trading back into the first round to take you know who. If the Bills are going to address the quarterback position at all, they need to do it right. No more of these "sort of" or "maybe"-type players!! Unless a quarterback has proved himself an accurate, accomplished pocket passer at the college level, in a reasonably complex offense, there's no need for the Bills to take him. If that means not drafting a quarterback at all this year, so be it. There are plenty of other holes on this team, and we already have a "sort of" "maybe" quarterback anyway in the form of Brohm.

Good call. I was also going on memory which apparently proved a little faulty at points.

This is an excellent post! The fact is that getting a top five pick, or even the first overall pick, gives you an opportunity at a caliber of player who might not be there later on in the draft. Bruce Smith was picked first overall. So was Peyton Manning. And Troy Aikman. And Leon Lett. And Carson Palmer. And Orlando Pace. And (I think) Tony Boselli. Matt Ryan was chosen third overall. Jon Ogden was chosen in the top 5, and may have been first overall. We need a few guys like that. There's currently only one Bill in the top 100 NFL players: the aging Terrell Owens; whose contract expires at the end of the season. This team needs elite players, and the very top of the draft is the best place to find them. The fact that a lousy front office will mess up early draft picks is, quite frankly, irrelevant. If you have a lousy front office, your team is doomed to failure anyway. So you may as well write off its chances for winning games, or building itself into a winner, until those front office people are replaced. But once you get the right front office in place, you want to give it picks as early in the draft as possible.

You're not? The OP indicated that he has no use for meaningless wins that only hurt our draft position. He also wanted to see evidence of strength in key areas, much like we did in Kelly's first year at the quarterback position. (Despite the fact that team lost a ton of games.) What's so earth shatteringly unreasonable about either of those positions?

This. Add in the fact that some of their games (such as the Cleveland game) were played in windy/bad conditions, making it harder for both teams to pass the ball.

Well Bill, I know your heart is set on addressing the defensive secondary. Problem is, you can't keep burning all your high picks on defensive backs. At some point, you have to address the offensive line. And I mean you, personally, because I'm convinced that somehow you're the one responsible for the Bills using so many early picks on DBs. The NFL draft is in New York City. You're from New York City--it says so right in your name! And you're in favor of taking DBs early and often: you said so right in your post! I know I'm probably never going to persuade you to use your influence to get the Bills to take offensive linemen. Which is too bad. Bell isn't quite as good as you've made him out to be, and the Bills could at least try to find an upgrade to his position with their first round pick. But that's not what I'm expecting you to do. Come draft day, I expect Bill/the Bills to trade away their second and third round picks in order to move up, and take Taylor Mays, SS.

In answer to your question . . . I never really did develop a soft spot in my heart for Losman. It's been said that Losman embraced Buffalo. That's one way of looking at it. Another is that he wanted to be liked by the fans of his new team. He gained social rewards for having bought that house near Elmwood Avenue, and for his neighborhood cleanup efforts. Would he have done those things if, instead, he had expected indifference or even social penalties? On another thread, someone mentioned that he drank a number of shots of some expensive liquor, at $150 a shot. Maybe he just liked the taste, but maybe he was trying to impress people. If the latter is the case, it would argue that he's insecure. Compare that to a guy like Jim Kelly. He snubbed Buffalo for a couple years, opting to play for the Houston Gamblers instead. Once he finally came to Buffalo--not by choice, incidentally--he was welcomed like a conquering hero. Now that he's retired, and can live wherever he feels like, he's opted to stay in Buffalo. His charity--Hunter's Hope--was created because of his son's serious illness. Jim Kelly's relationship with the city of Buffalo strikes me as being more genuine and sincere than Losman's. In answer to your original question, I think that as Bills fans, we haven't had much to cheer about since the day Jim Kelly and his teammates hung up their cleats. That's caused an element of wanting to believe the best about current Bills players. Losman gave people that. They could see his physical gifts, and imagine how good a quarterback he could be if some combination of "coaching" "experience" and other factors allowed his mind to catch up to his body. They saw his cleanup efforts and his house as evidence that Losman had embraced Buffalo, just like Jim Kelly did (eventually). Unfortunately, the hope Losman gave people was a mirage, both on and (probably) off the field. He was not the Jim Kelly people wanted him to be.

There were a number of instances in which I saw anti-Losman people say negative things about him, only to have Losman's supporters respond with fact-free personal attacks. The Losman debate began at least as early as 2005, when there was a controversy about whether he or Holcomb should be the starter. There was also a question as to whether the Bills should draft a replacement quarterback, as I suggested they do in the 2006 draft. (I was called an idiot for that, by the way.) The year before Parcells became the GM of the Dolphins, they used an early second round pick on Beck. In Parcells' first year as GM, he used an early second round pick on Henne. So there's a case of a competent GM giving up on a quarterback taken in the late first/early second round range of the draft before really giving him much of a chance to prove himself. Should the Bills have done to Losman what the Dolphins did to Beck? Dave Wannestadt said that he wouldn't have drafted Losman with the last pick of the seventh round. Losman fit the standard-issue profile of a bust: a guy with great physical tools who had never proven himself as a pocket passer at the college level.

There are two possible positions here: 1) a good-to-elite quarterback is a necessary condition to winning the Super Bowl. 2) A good quarterback is a sufficient condition for having a good football team. There is considerable truth to #1, although there can be exceptions if everything else on your team goes perfectly (see the Ravens of 2000). Position #2, however, is false: a good quarterback, alone, won't give you a good football team. He'll be driven into the ground behind his nonexistent offensive line. Passes which should have been caught will be dropped by his inadequate receiving corps. Running plays will constitute wasted downs, and will do nothing to prevent the defense from going all-out against the pass. The defense will allow a ton of points; thereby forcing the offense to try, generally unsuccessfully, to keep up. Even the special teams will contribute its share to the overall debacle. The above paragraph is why quarterbacks should not be evaluated on their teams' win/loss records. (Which is what my earlier post had been in response to.) There's just so much that goes into a win or a loss besides just the quarterback's personal contribution. I will, however, agree with the proposition that unless you have a good to elite quarterback, your team's odds of winning the Super Bowl are very slim indeed. Any time you have an elite quarterback, you'd want to give him the best possible tools with which to work. You'd want to do this for the same reason that if you'd just hired Leonardo da Vinci, you'd want to give him more than just a box of crayons and some construction paper. An elite quarterback belongs behind a good offensive line, and deserves to have a good, reliable receiving corps noted for not dropping catches.

I voted for the Losman fanboys. There were a lot of people in that group who'd call you an idiot for predicting Losman would fail. I know that substance-free, personal attack-ridden arguments are common on this site, but there were a lot of Losman supporters who were bad about those things even by the low standards of TBD. I don't want to lump all Losman supporters into that group though. Dog and Wraith are two glaringly obvious exceptions to the above description, and I'm sure there are others I've overlooked.

I disagree with the wording of this thread. The player in question has not been "cut." He has merely gone incognito.

It's the same skill set. Except that Vick's accuracy issues are even more pronounced than Losman's. Vick's a faster runner though. As for the "winning record" thing: QUARTERBACKS DO NOT WIN OR LOSE FOOTBALL GAMES. Football is a team sport. Put Joe Montana on the Detroit Lions, and you'd be lucky to win four games. Put Trent Dilfer on the Ravens, and you have a Super Bowl champion.

I disagree with this post. Vick lacks pocket presence. Back when he was a starter with Atlanta, I remember him being among the most sacked quarterbacks in the league. Also, Flutie's bread and butter was his short game; whereas you wouldn't, um, exactly say that about Vick. Accuracy in general has never been Vick's strong suit. He was at his most successful when he could use his foot speed to draw defensive backs out of position a little, then use his arm strength to heave the ball far down the field. Vick is definitely a good athlete, and maybe even a good football player. But a good quarterback he ain't.

Just noticed your sig. I've seen wild turkeys fly short distances. And I've seen them manage to fly up into trees. Getting back to the subject of this thread, I agree that good conditioning is an important part of avoiding injuries. Whether it's being more flexible, or being less likely to strain a hamstring, it's important. Also, if you're really tired it's easy to get a little sloppy, and to not do the little things that can help prevent injury.

Remember that, minus the head coach, this is the same coaching staff that gave Anthony Thomas practically all the carries while Lynch was hurt, while keeping Fred Jackson on the bench. Only after Thomas got hurt did Jackson receive an opportunity to prove himself. This is not to suggest that Steve Johnson is destined to become the next Fred Jackson. But it does demonstrate that we can't rely on this coaching staff to identify good players from among our backups. Also, this coaching staff has Evans and TO as their starters, and Reed (who played well last year) in the slot. They have little incentive to try something new. At this point, all we know about Johnson is that he's looked good in very limited playing time. That may amount to nothing in the long run, or it could turn into something.

I agree with your point about the need to bring QBs along slowly. I also think that we should let Brohm learn the playbook before putting him out on the field. We do nothing for his confidence by setting him up to fail. But I disagree with your assertion that JP was rushed into action. Losman spent his entire rookie year on the bench, but became the starter at the beginning of his second year. That's the way every first round QB's career should be. I'll grant that Losman spent a fair amount of his rookie year injured, thus depriving himself of opportunities to learn on the practice field. But there's still game film, plus mental reps, plus other stuff to get some value out of that time. Plus there's the practice time he had both before the injury and after his recovery. Despite the injury, there's a huge difference between throwing a rookie QB into the fire on the one hand, and how Losman was handled on the other.

Assuming the bolded statement is true, it would be extremely discouraging. It would suggest that, if there's a QB wort taking when our first round pick comes around, we should grab him.

Yes. Yes. (Not that your comment was addressed to me.) Back in 2006, I felt that the Bills should either use their 8th overall pick on a QB such as Cutler, or else should trade down. I spent enough posts advocating for Cutler that I was derisively referred to as "Cutler's Arm." I also advocated the drafting of Mangold as the Bills' center. Levy decided to give Losman and Melvin Fowler a chance at QB and center, respectively, while using his two first round picks on Donte Whitner and John McCargo. Whitner is a run of the mill safety, and McCargo is a backup. Cutler was traded for (IIRC) two first round picks, plus change, while Mangold is arguably the best center in the league. Cutler was available when we took Whitner, and Mangold was available when we took McCargo. I'm a casual fan here, and I don't feel like I bring any magical insight that couldn't be attained by any other intelligent fan. And yet, with those two first round picks alone, I would have achieved more than Marv did in his entire tenure as GM. If Marv doesn't want to be sitting among the fans, he needs to do a better job of building the team than its fans would have done. He clearly failed that litmus test, and deserves to be known as a very poor GM.

Look at some of the parallels between Brohm and Drew Brees: Both quarterbacks were highly accomplished pocket passers at the college level Neither quarterback was known for being mobile Both quarterbacks were taken in the early second round Both quarterbacks were given up on by the team that drafted them There are some differences though. Drew Brees was shown much more patience, and given a much better opportunity, in San Diego than Brohm received in Green Bay. On the latter team, the performance of Aaron Rodgers as well as that backup meant that Green Bay was set at both starting and backup QB either with or without Brohm. That's one of the absolute last places I'd want to be if I was an unproven QB trying to become a starter in the NFL. While there's absolutely no guarantee that Brohm will become the next Drew Brees story, he has a much better chance of becoming one than Losman ever did. Unlike Brees or Brohm, Losman was never an accomplished pocket passer at the college level. Losman was drafted because of his physical gifts.

There are three main categories in which one evaluates a general manager: 1) Drafts 2) Coaching hires 3) Free Agent acquisitions Drafts: Marv's first day picks were as follows: 2006 1) (8th overall) Donte Whitner, SS 1) John McCargo 3) Ashton Youboty 2007 1) (12th overall) Marshawn Lynch, RB 2) Paul Posluszy, LB 3) Trent Edwards, QB It's difficult to argue that any of those players has lived up to the expectations associated with his draft position. Marv had some success with second day picks--most notably Kyle Williams and Brad Butler--but that does not balance out his failures on the first day of the draft in general, and in the first round in particular. Grade for drafting: D Coaching hires: Jauron wasn't even a particularly good defensive coach, so it's not obvious why he was offered the head coaching job in Chicago in the first place. It is, however, obvious why no one (other than the Bills) fell all over themselves to give him a second chance after things in Chicago didn't work out. Grade for coaching hire: F Free agents signings: Derrick Dockery, Langston Walker, Tuten Reyes, Robert Royal, Peerless Price, Melvin Fowler, and probably a few other guys I'm forgetting. Grade for free agent signings: H. (An F is not a low enough grade to describe this track record.) Overall, Marv's tenure as a GM was an abysmal, total failure.