Orton's Arm

It's easy for your team's pass defense to look good when you're playing against the likes of Derek Anderson. Look at who we've faced: Week 1: Tom Brady. Looked rusty early on, and demolished and embarrassed the Bills' defense once the rust wore off. Week 2: Byron Leftwich. Passed for nearly 300 yards!! Week 3: Drew Brees. This was the best performance by the Bills' pass defense, this season. Week 4: Chad Henne. A second year player making one of his first career starts. Week 5: Derek Anderson. Will that guy even be a backup next season? Week 6: Mark Sanchez, rookie QB Week 7: Jake Delhomme. Over 300 yards passing for a guy who, this season, has a 67.0 QB rating. Week 8: Matt Schaub (268 passing yards) Week 9: Bye Week 10: Vince Young (210 passing yards) The defense hasn't done a good job of getting off the field on third downs. Also, other teams' QBs seem to pile up more yards against the Bills defense than they do most other weeks. (The Saints game being the obvious exception.) The defense has made up for its inadequacies with turnovers, and in particular with Byrd. But I don't see the emergence of Byrd as a credit to Fewell. It's not like the other Bills' DBs have exactly been Byrd-like in their ability to get turnovers. If his interceptions were a result of great coaching, you'd expect some of the other DBs (also getting that supposedly great coaching) to start getting lots of interceptions too. The credit for Byrd goes to Brandon for having found a special football player. Not to the coaching staff which teaches DBs to play 20 yards off the ball.

That record you cited implies five playoff games. Which is five more playoff games than the Bills have been in since the Clinton presidency.

Badol hit the nail right on the head with that post! Well, except that he under-estimated the performance of our DEs, and he failed to anticipate the emergence of . But his post was written a few days before the draft (April 25th - 26th), so the second point doesn't count. Overall, Badol demonstrated a very good ability to see things objectively, without having his perceptions distorted by his wishes.

The benefit of the doubt is certainly one way by which the next head coach can be selected. Another option is to demand a proven track record of success.

Jack Welch described a case where he hired a guy based on an absolutely mind-blowingly good performance that guy had in his job interview. It was probably the best individual performance Welch had ever witnessed in an interview. A few years later, Welch had to fire the guy due to poor performance. The lesson he learned from that is that it's not good to put too much confidence in an interview. Evaluate a person by the results he's produced. I haven't seen/heard the clip of Fewell accepting the interim head coach position. Maybe he sounded great. But looking strictly at his performance as a defensive coordinator, I would not like to see him as the Bills' next head coach. Or even their next defensive coordinator, for that matter.

I agree with your analysis of Marv's tenure as a head coach and as a GM. The classlessness of the original post--and people's negative responses to such--apparently have distracted attention from the points you've raised. First off, the OP was totally out of line with his remark. That said, Marv's two drafts were the disasters you've described. 2006 1a) Donte Whitner, 8th overall 1b) John McCargo. (Nick Mangold--arguably the best center in the NFL--was taken a pick or two later) 3) Ashton Youboty 4) Ko Simpson 5a) Kyle Williams 5b) Brad Butler 6) Keith Ellison 7a) Terrence Pennington 7b) Aaron Merz 2007 1) Marshawn Lynch 2) Paul Posluszny 3) Trent Edwards 4) Dwayne Wright 5) John Wendling 6) Derek Schouman 7) C.J. Ah You Beyond picking up a few good players on the second day of the 2006 draft, both drafts were deep disappointments. Neither of the first round picks were used on guys who were either a) good football players in relation to where they were being picked, or b) who played positions that Marv should have been addressing at that point in the draft. When you're rebuilding a team from scratch, you start with your offensive line, your defensive line, and your quarterback. Not with strong safeties and RBs! Back in 2006, Marv had the chance to rebuild the team the right way. He could have either drafted Cutler for himself--the Bills needed a QB--or he could have traded down; acquiring Denver's second round pick in the process. A third option would have been to have stayed put and drafted Ngata. Any of those three things would have been much better options than taking Donte Whitner 8th overall! There were two hallmarks of Marv's drafting. 1) Rather than taking the best available football players, Marv generally reached for players who were less good, based on need. 2) Marv did a lousy job of defining what our team's needs were in the first place. This was mostly a result of his misplaced confidence in his free agent signings.

Why do you want this team to win meaningless games? The advantage to a 3-13 season as opposed to 6-10 is that the former gives us a shot at some of the elite talent in this draft. The advantage to the 6-10 season is . . . ? As far as the first-timer thing, I don't have a problem with hiring a really good offensive or defensive coordinator to be the head coach. But I'd want it to be one of the league's best coordinators. I don't put Fewell into that category. His style of defense is quite vulnerable to short-to-intermediate passing plays over the middle; as well as to "death by a thousand small cuts" type offenses. That vulnerability hasn't been exposed that much this season because we've faced some really lousy quarterbacks. Derek Anderson. Vince Young (a good runner, but . . .). That QB from Tampa. A rookie QB in Sanchez, and a second year QB in Henne making one of his first career starts. Even in the Patriots game, their lack of offensive success early on was because they made mistakes they don't usually make. Inaccurate passes, dropped catches, etc. Once the Patriots offense got rolling, there was nothing our defense could do to stop it. Or even slow it down. Fewell hasn't shown himself proficient at devising clever defensive strategies, the way you'd expect from a Bill Belichick or a Dick Lebeau. Quite frankly, the last thing this team needs is another secondary coach-turned second-rate defensive coordinator becoming our next head coach!

Agreed. I'm not a huge Holmgren fan myself, at least not as a GM. He approved of (made the final call on?) the Jerramy Stevens pick. Back when he was in college, Stevens used a date rape drug to rape a fellow classmate (a woman who'd been a virgin beforehand). Using a first round pick on a guy like that--as the Seahawks did--was a dubious decision at best. Unsurprisingly, Stevens turned out to be a bust. Either Holmgren knew about the rape and ignored it (bad judgment) or he didn't know (poor due diligence). Either way, I don't want someone like that being the GM of this football team. There are other, better candidates out there.

I'm not necessarily a big fan of hiring Grimm as a head coach, just because he hasn't yet been an offensive coordinator. That said, I certainly wouldn't mind seeing him being given the coordinator position under whichever head coach we hire!

Let's hope that doesn't happen for two reasons. 1) I'd rather not have Fewell as head coach. There are better candidates out there. 2) The Bills need to lose their seven remaining games to help their draft position. The Kansas City game is especially important. The 3.5 wins you predicted would be an absolute disaster for this football team.

Right. Because DBs playing 20 yards off the ball is a sign of superior coaching!

That's why the Kansas City game is so crucial. We need to lose that game if we're at all serious about moving up in the draft. Losing that game would avoid a potentially serious (from a draft perspective) fourth win on the season, plus it sticks them with a win (and therefore a lower position) on draft day!

Another problem Detroit had was that Matt Millen was the one doing the picking. So most of the flashy guys you described didn't go on to have very good football careers. When Bill Polian went to Indy, he used a first overall pick on a "flashy" position: QB. But this was Bill Polian doing the picking, not Matt Millen. Which is probably why the Colts ended up with Peyton Manning.

Since when did Bill agree with your idea that Losman was a better QB than Edwards? It seems like you're putting your own words into Bill's mouth. Look--if Losman could play at the NFL level, he'd still be in the NFL. He can't, and he isn't. End of story. It looks like we're also coming to the end of Trent's story, at least as a starter. I think he'd make a decent backup though.

Before that draft, there was a big debate about whether Manning or Leaf would have the better career. A debate which seems to have died down a little, as of late. The pro-Manning faction of that debate pointed out that he was the more polished player; and had developed better pocket passing skills at the college level. Leaf was "raw"--by which it was meant he wasn't (yet?) as good a pocket passer as Manning. But Leaf supposedly had more "upside"--by which they meant his physical gifts were better than Manning's. The Manning/Leaf dichotomy illustrates a more general point about quarterbacks. Don't take a guy based on his "potential" if by "potential" you mean "physical potential." (Physical) potential got us J.P. Losman. Physical potential got the Raiders Jamarcus Russell. Physical potential played a big role in getting the Chargers Ryan Leaf. But if you take a "polished passer" at the college level, you stand a much better chance of avoiding a bust. Even if he doesn't have the world's greatest set of physical attributes, so what? Joe Montana fell to the third round due to his lack of arm strength. If the Bills come across an accomplished, polished, first-rate pocket passer, they should take him. Period. Guys like that are rare and difficult to acquire--more difficult even than top-tier offensive tackles. But if the best available QB is "raw" or "unpolished," then we should forget about that guy and go with an offensive tackle instead. Both quarterbacks and offensive linemen tend to have long careers. So it's not all that important when you acquire your QB versus your linemen. Focus on getting the right football players--especially for key positions like QB and LT--rather than on when you happen to get them!

I agree with this. A team needs game-changers if it's going to go anywhere; and you're most likely to find game changing players at the top of the draft. Whether it's a quarterback or a left tackle, we need someone who can give us an elite level of play at his position for many long years to come. I've heard good things about Locker; and most (all?) of the teams that will be picking early have their quarterback situation locked up. He's someone to think about, either if he falls to wherever we pick, or if there's an opportunity to trade up. This is also a very good year for left tackles.

Things have become a lot better for me after I started thinking about the season in terms of the draft. Let's face it: the 2009 Buffalo Bills don't exactly have the look of a team destined to win the upcoming Super Bowl. There's no sense in rooting for them to win meaningless games that will a) hurt us in the draft, and b) increase our coaching staff's chance of hanging on, again, with yet another 7-9 season. Once you start rooting for this team to lose games--to help the rebuilding process along--it completely changes your perspective. Looking at the upcoming schedule, I'm nervous about the Kansas City game; but everything else seems quite losable! We need to go into the 2010 draft with a top 5 pick; and into the 2010 season with a new coaching staff! That said, I'd like to see our younger players do well, so that there will be something to build around next season. We need to see what we have or don't have in Steve Johnson; and in others like him.

Mike Williams sends you his thanks.

Dude. I'm not exactly enamored with Edwards myself. Unless he significantly improves the quality of his play, I'd be all in favor of the Bills using a first round pick on a QB. (Assuming, of course, that there's a guy worth taking when we pick. No more reaches, please!!!) So I can understand your disappointment in Edwards. I can even see where seeing Dakota Fanning in his profile would raise some question marks. But if she's a family friend--someone he knows personally--then it's different.

Considering that any team could have signed TO as a free agent, and no one chose to outbid us, it's very doubtful that anyone would give us anything in the draft for him. He certainly hasn't done anything to increase his own trade value while here! That said, I agree with your overall thought process. We should start getting our younger guys out on the field. This is a rebuilding year. As next year will also be.

Great post! Just to add to what you've written: first-rate QBs in their primes almost never hit free agency. Yeah, there's always the Drew Brees example. But that was a few years ago. What quarterbacks since then have a) hit free agency, b) have been in their primes, c) have performed at the level of the nine success stories you found? Unless your defense is as good as that of the Ravens of 2000, you're going to need a real QB to win the Super Bowl. Getting a real QB generally means drafting one--usually in the first round. That said, this may not be a very good draft for quarterbacks. From a purely tactical perspective, the Bills might be better served by using their first round pick on a LT, and waiting until the first round of 2011 to draft the QB.

I disagree with the bolded part. He was a lousy passer even in his prime. He had the lowest completion percentage of any QB in the league. Now that he's not as fast as he used to be, defenses don't have to respect his running ability as much as they once did. That puts even more pressure on his substandard passing skills. This team needs a real answer at QB. This guy ain't it.

Maybe the fans of other teams with lousy coaches voted for Jauron, for the same reason you voted for those teams' lousy coaches. If this keeps up, the guys on that list are going to start looking like Vince Lombardi (at least in the polls).

The line is better at run blocking than at pass protection. Also, on a running play, you can design the play such that the ball carrier is supposed to go where your best blockers are. Thus taking advantage of the strengths of your line. On a pass play, the fact that, say, your RG can block the guy in front of him for five seconds or more doesn't matter if your LT merely waves at the RDE as he runs by.