Orton's Arm

Jaws was really high on Losman. Brandon just finished drafting guys like Wood and Byrd. I voted no.

In the long run, that injury could help this franchise. Byrd is the kind of player who, by himself, can make the difference between winning and losing a football game. Having him play the second half of the season could easily generate two additional wins. Those meaningless wins won't help us do anything this year, and will hurt us on draft day. This is a draft rich in left tackles; and we need to get the best one we can. (Or a quarterback, if there's a good one available when we pick.)

Losman could throw the long bomb. I'll give him that. And Lee Evans can burn you deep. I'll give him that! But both those guys are fairly one-dimensional other than those things; albeit less so in Evans' case than in Losman's.

This team "needs to upgrade at cornerback" like a hole in the head! The absolute last thing this team should spend a first-day pick on is either RB or DB. Or anyone who can return kicks. I do not want to see this team use yet another early pick on a Roscoe Parrish, Leodis McKelvin, Marshawn Lynch, or Donte Whitner! :angry: This team needs to keep its quarterback out of a wheelchair. That means a LT. It also needs a quarterback whose play would actually be affected by being in a wheelchair! Until they get those two positions squared away, nothing else matters. If there are no offensive linemen or quarterbacks worth taking when we pick, a defensive lineman would be my third choice.

That's almost exactly what I chose--except that I took McGee instead of Whitner. Obviously, if you're rebuilding a team, the bias should be in favor of younger players--which would make Whitner a better move than McGee. But maybe neither guy is the answer for that seventh slot. Possibly, we should select a write-in player like like Nelson, Corner, or McKelvin.

I more or less agree with the vast majority of what you've written. In particular, I strongly agree with your statement that there was no overarching vision for building the football team. You alluded to the Bills' good record back in 2002; and how they seemed to be on the cusp of the playoffs. I remember that year well. I wanted to believe that the offense was all straightened out, and that with a few additions to the defense, the team could really go far. But in my heart I knew better. As you pointed out, Belichick demonstrated how to beat Bledsoe: send pressure up the middle. The Bills' offensive line was weak in the middle, and Bledsoe was considerably slower to make decisions than Tom Brady. (A full second slower or more, IIRC.) At no point in his tenure did TD use a first day pick on an interior offensive lineman. Apparently, TD lacked the self-discipline to avoid seeing what he wanted to see. Hence his decision to sacrifice the long-term (by letting Winfield walk) in favor of the short-term (by using the Winfield money on aging veterans like Milloy and Vincent). That's symptomatic of the lack of self-discipline TD demonstrated while running this team. That lack shows up vividly when his first round picks are examined. 2001: Nate Clements. First contract and out. 2002: Mike Williams. Bust. 2003a: Drew Bledsoe. Looked mediocre after his first eight games. 2003b: Willis McGahee: a moderately disappointing player. TD had used a second round pick on Travis Henry just two years earlier. 2004a: Lee Evans. A good to very good stretch the field WR; but not necessarily the guy you want as your #1. 2004b: JP Losman. Bust. There are a host of reasons why that list looks as bad as it does. The two primary ones which come to mind are TD's shortsightedness and his poor player evaluation ability. Shortsightedness: As you probably remember, the Bills went 3-13 in 2001. Following that season, TD traded away a first round pick for an aging veteran (Bledsoe). A team that's in rebuilding mode should trade away its veteran players to get more draft picks. It should not trade away first round picks to get aging veterans! Then there's the short-sightedness of paying so much attention to the RB position (2nd round in 2001, first round in 2003)--even though RBs typically have short careers. If you're in rebuilding mode, then early in the process you should take guys expected to have longer careers (quarterbacks, offensive linemen, WRs, etc.). Then a few years into the process you can focus on guys at positions of shorter careers. That way everything can come together at once. Poor Player Evaluation: TD overvalued physical traits while undervaluing intangibles. Mike Williams had all the physical talent in the world, but he lacked the heart and desire to succeed at football. J.P. Losman had excellent physical traits, but had never established himself as a pocket passer back in college. Dave Wannestadt said that he wouldn't have drafted Losman with the last pick in the seventh round. It's possible that TD envisioned an offense predicated on pure speed; and that this vision (assuming he had it) contributed to his tendency to overlook intangible traits in favor of measurables. Lee Evans is fast. So too is Roscoe Parrish. And Kevin Everett, up until his injury. Willis McGahee was a very fast running back in college, before he got hurt. Even Losman is quite fast for a quarterback. Plus Losman is good at throwing the long bomb--which is important if your offense is predicated on burning the other team deep. (As an aside, each of the guys I mentioned cost us a first or second round pick. Except for Everett, who cost us a third.) If the thinking in the above paragraph is correct, then it would arguably be an example of TD's tendency to see what he wants to see, not what's actually there. His vision sounded like a good idea, in theory. But it turns out that deep speed was the only real asset of players like Parrish and Everett. And that good physical traits and the long bomb were the only good things about Losman. This kind of wishful thinking can be seen elsewhere. Take a guy who wants to date a woman who's both intelligent and attractive. He focused his attention on the prettiest woman in the room, and hopes that she's also one of the brightest. And ignores evidence that she's actually fairly dumb. TD's thinking was exactly the same as this, except that he wanted players who were both ridiculously physically gifted and productive, good football players. He focused on the most gifted athletes that came to his attention; while ignoring or misinterpreting evidence that those physical gifts were the only good things those players had to offer.

Locker would be perfect for this team. We already have a guy named Corner who plays . . . corner. We have a guy named Draft who was originally selected at some point in the draft. Now it's time to take the player you mentioned; so that he can become a team leader and make the locker room his own.

You've made a good point about how TD took the Winfield money and used it on Milloy instead. (Well, part of it anyway. The rest went to Troy Vincent.) Back when that decision was made, the Bills were in rebuilding mode. They didn't have a strong core of young or mid-age good players. TD's decision to spend the money on Vincent and Milloy instead of Winfield might have made sense for a team on the verge of being a threat to go to the Super Bowl. A team that's that close could justifiably put the short-term ahead of the long run. But the Bills were very far from being that. For them, it made much more sense to choose the young, very good player (Winfield) instead of the two decent aging veterans (Milloy and Vincent). Unfortunately, TD was unable to see this, because of his short-sightedness, lack of strategic vision, and because he got greedy when Milloy became a free agent. Having watched Winfield walk out the door, and play well for the Vikings, you'd think that TD would have made more of an effort to avoid having the same thing happen twice. Instead, TD watched as Clements' contract expired. Having a first round pick go first contract and out is a failure story. One could attribute the failure to picking the wrong player (i.e., one unworthy of a second contract), to picking a player who plays an overpaid position (such as CB), or to management failing to give adequate priority to extending the contracts of its draft picks. Perhaps all three factors played at least some role in Clements' quick departure. I'd also argue those factors contributed to the loss of Greer (whom you underrate). If we'd extended Greer before that draft, we wouldn't have needed to use the 11th overall pick on McKelvin. That would have freed up the pick for use on a position of need. (Instead of using it on a position of self-created need.) My concerns about the Greer/McKelvin swap are very slightly mitigated by the fact that most draft experts felt that McKelvin was the best player available when we picked. But like you said yourself, when you have Brett Favre, you don't draft Peyton Manning. This was a case of drafting Peyton Manning, while letting Favre's contract expire shortly thereafter. (Not that either Greer or McKelvin are remotely comparable to Favre or Manning.) Brandon's second year as GM was a lot more successful than his first. He used three of his first four picks on linemen; and the one non-lineman pick he made was Jairus Byrd. There's nothing wrong with any of that, assuming the Maybin pick pans out. As important as any of his draft picks was the fact that he extended McGee. That's one less future instance of the Bills using a first round pick on a CB!

Let's say you spend $1000 on lottery tickets. You scratch off the silvery stuff, and find that your total winnings are $400. At that point, you can either a) sell the lottery tickets to someone else for $400, or b) collect the $400 yourself. The $1000 you originally spent for the lottery tickets is a sunk cost that is irrelevant to the value of those lottery tickets. The same goes for Lynch. His strengths and limitations are at least as obvious to NFL GMs as they are to the people on these boards. Hopefully there's a GM willing to give us fair value for Lynch in a trade. But in this case, fair value is based on the kind of player Lynch is, and has nothing to do with what we spent on draft picks to get him. We can either keep Lynch (which helps us now) or trade him for a draft pick (helping us later). Personally, I'd prefer the latter route; as this team isn't going to achieve anything in the short-term, either with or without Lynch.

I think his point is that if the Bills have a policy of not re-signing top-tier CBs beyond their first contract, it doesn't make sense to use first round picks on CBs. A team should use its first and second round picks on guys expected to be with the team for the long haul; not players expected to go first contract and out.

Um . . . a top ten pick. You're probably right about that, considering that even the Bills were able to beat the Panthers. Not only that, the 2010 draft is rich in good left tackle prospects; though I'm sure that thought hadn't occurred to you! This situation is one fraught with extremes. On the one hand, Byrd is playing much better than a guy chosen early in the second round has any right to play. It's almost a little ridiculous. On the other hand, we need a huge upgrade at LT, if this team is even remotely serious about keeping the QB from going into a permanent coma. It almost makes me wish we had had two picks in the early second round: one to use on Byrd, and the other to trade for Carolina's first round pick.

A running back's career is typically short, which is why it doesn't make sense to draft one until most of the other pieces are in place. The Bills are probably at least two full offseasons away from being a threat to be dangerous deep into the playoffs. How much gas will Lynch have left in his tank after 2.5 more seasons? If we could a) get a second round pick for him, and b) avoid using a first-day pick on a RB for the next two to three years, I'd recommend going ahead with the trade. When you're in rebuilding mode (as the Bills are, or should be), it makes sense to trade away whichever of your veteran players a) are young/good enough to still have some trade value, and b) are old enough that they won't be able to give very many good years to your team, once the rebuilding process is complete. Lynch probably falls into that category. That said, if they trade him, they should not use a first-day pick on a RB before 2012, or even 2013. Doing otherwise would defeat the whole purpose of the trade.

The 2001 draft was a tactical victory, but not a strategic victory. The tactical victory side of it is the part you mentioned: Clements, Schobel, and (for a while) Henry had good to very good careers. But the Henry pick was a 2nd round draft choice to try to upgrade the RB position, when we already had Antowain Smith. After the Bills took Henry, they released Smith; getting nothing in return. The Bills should have stuck with Smith; and should have used that second round pick on a guy at a position of greater need. For example, on an offensive lineman who could have given us ten solid but unspectacular years. Nate Clements was a tactical victory, but a strategic defeat. The reason why the Bills took a CB in the first round of 2001 was because the plan was to let Antoine Winfield go first contract and out. Winfield was a very successful CB who'd been taken in the first round a few years earlier. TD should have known that, if whatever thought process he used would result in letting Winfield go first contract and out, it would also result in letting Clements go first contract and out when his time came. Clements' contract expired when TD was still the GM. Marv squeezed an extra year out of him with the franchise tag, but ultimately that was yet another case of using a first round pick on a CB destined to leave after his first contract. Are good teams built by letting their most successful first round picks go first contract and out? I'm not sure if I agree with that. The teams with the best draft track records place a heavy emphasis on "football character"--passion for the game, work ethic, and mental toughness. All traits Mike Williams lacked. Would those successful drafting teams have been able to figure out that he lacked those traits, prior to the draft? I don't know the answer to that. But I did notice a general tendency on TD's part to place a significantly heavier emphasis on physical traits than some other teams did; while de-emphasizing the mental and character side of the equation. McGahee was another strategic error--the team should not have addressed the RB position--again!--when there were other holes to fill. There was an offensive lineman that Bill from NYC wanted, who went a few picks after McGahee. That guy went on to have a very good career; while the Bills' line is still struggling. We got two third round picks for McGahee. According to the draft value chart, the 15th pick in the 2nd round is less than half as valuable as the 15th pick in the first. And the 15th pick in the 3rd round is less than half as valuable as the 15th pick in the second. Turning a first round pick into two 3rd rounders will typically cause you to lose more than half your draft day value. I'm not sure exactly what you mean by that. But if you're implying that differences in teams' draft-day outcomes are entirely attributable to luck, then I'd strongly disagree. While there's certainly a strong element of random variation involved, the draft will, over time, reward those teams which are the most intelligent and disciplined in their player evaluation and selection process. A Bill Polian will, on average, get you significantly better results on draft day than will a Matt Millen. I'll grant that Buffalo hasn't been a first-rate destination for QBs, because of the lack of an offensive line (see above), bad coaching, and other factors. But let's be real here: it's not like the only thing standing between Todd Collins, Billy Joe Hobart, or J.P. Losman and the Hall of Fame was the Bills' organizational incompetence. Those guys would have failed or been relegated to backup roles on just about any team for which they played. (Not that Hobart or Losman would necessarily have made the final roster.)

Re. #1: apparently, Jairus Byrd has decided to play well enough that you, personally, will come to conclude that the Bills were better off drafting him than they would have been either with a lineman or with Carolina's first round pick in next year's draft. Byrd seems to realize that convincing you of that proposition is a tough row to hoe. Look what he's done so far. In his first NFL game as a starter, he got only one interception. Let's give him a mulligan for that, because he's a rookie, and had to miss part of the mini-camps due to an NFL rule regarding final exams. Since then, he's intercepted two passes a game. At that pace, a player would have an absolutely insane 32 interceptions over the course of the season! Your whole defense isn't supposed to get half that many interceptions. I'll grant that what we've seen thus far is probably an anomaly; and he's likely to slow down his present interception pace. But if he turns out to be only half the ballhawk he now appears, it will still have been a very good use of that second round pick. That said, it's glaringly obvious that the Bills need to address their lines early in the 2010 draft, starting with the left tackle position.

What aspect of the way our DBs are being coached (i.e., playing 10 - 20 yards off the ball) has led you to that conclusion?

That was a good article! Thanks for the link. I've concluded that Byrd is the word!

One point which I'm surprised hasn't been mentioned earlier is this: over the last several years, the salary cap has gone up considerably, while shared revenues have remained stagnant. In the past, a team like the Bills could afford to spend up to the salary cap and still make a profit. That's no longer the case. Also, money spent on coaches and front office personnel doesn't count against the salary cap. Together, these two factors make it hard for a team like the Bills to compete. If you're a first-rate GM, would you rather go to a team whose owner is willing and able to spend right up to the salary cap limit, or to a team whose low revenues impose a far lower ceiling on player spending than does the salary cap? Add in the fact that the lower revenue team is likely to pay less for front office types, and it's a no brainer for the first-rate front office guy to go to the higher revenue team. If we want an increase in parity, there needs to be a reduction in the salary cap, in both relative (to league revenue) and absolute terms. While that reduction in the salary cap, alone, will not cause parity, it will reduce the severity of a key contributing cause of the current lack of parity.

Good point. I also hope the Bills use a 4th round pick on a backup tackle, so that we won't see a collapse in the line if (when?) Butler does get hurt.

I think what the OP was saying is this: 1. TO attributed our offense's problems to the offensive line, not to QB play. 2. TO's instinct in the past has been to blame his QBs for a lot--throwing them under the bus at the slightest excuse. 3. The fact that a guy who's predisposed to blame the QB is, in this case, blaming the offensive line instead is further evidence that our team's offensive failings are due to the failure of the line. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. This year, we're learning that a wall is only as strong as its weakest brick. I'm looking forward to next season, when Butler will (hopefully) be healthy all year, and when we'll (ideally) have added a new starting LT early in the draft.

I've been an Edwards supporter in the past, but I'm becoming convinced that he's not the long-term answer at QB. But even though I now want the Bills to take a QB with their first round pick, I hated to see him on the ground with that concussion. I would rather he'd had any other injury than that one.

A good question. I haven't followed college football closely enough to give a definitive answer. I've heard some good things about McCoy (QB); who could possibly be the first of those two first round picks. What I'd suggested is just a Plan A. Something could easily go wrong with that Plan A. Maybe there would be no QBs/LTs worthy of being picked, where I'd like to pick them. Maybe no one would want to trade their pick in the lower part of the first round for our second and third round picks. We'd obviously have to have a Plan B and a Plan C ready to go, in case something goes wrong with Plan A.

Holcomb was a significantly better QB than a lot of people give him credit for. He was certainly a much more accurate passer than Fitzpatrick. In every Bills game Holcomb played from start to finish, the offense produced a minimum of 14 points. It's not like anyone can credit that to the offensive line, because we didn't have an offensive line the year Holcomb played. Mike Gandy was the line's best player; and was joined by guys like Trey Teague, Chris Villarrial, and Mike Williams. It's not like we can credit those 14 points a game to the running game, because in a lot of games, the running attack was shut down. Stuffed. Wrecked. The WRs deserve some of the credit for that production. However, they were often less than stellar at getting open, and tended to drop their fair share of passes (and then some). Moulds--the primary receiver--was on his last legs, and produced nothing after that year. That leaves Holcomb. Weak arm and all, he was an expert at making something out of nothing. He made the offense produce, despite the complete absence of anything even resembling pass protection, and despite the inconsistencies of the running game. How big a deal is 14 points for the offense? That's how many points Tom Brady scored in his most recent Super Bowl, despite being on an offense loaded with a ton more talent than the Bills had back in 2005. Edwards and Fitzpatrick have a long way to go before they're able to produce at a Holcomb-like level.

I know you may not want to hear this, but it's not like the free agent market is flooded with first-rate QBs and franchise LTs, in their primes, ripe for the signing. Even if it was flooded with guys like that, it's not like the Bills are exactly primed to win a bidding war against higher revenue franchises like the Cowboys or Redskins. We could always try to fill those holes by signing second- or third-rate free agents. That strategy got us guys like Derrick Dockery, Melvin Fowler, Langston Walker, Tuten Reyes, Trey Teague, Chris Villarrial, etc. Frankly, I'd rather not go down that road, as we've seen time and again that it leads off a cliff. If we want a solution to the problems at LT and QB, that solution is going to have to come through the draft. Our best chance to fill those holes successfully is to use a first round pick on each of them. That would require using our second and third round picks to trade back into the first round. That's a price this team should be willing to pay, because getting the QB/LT holes filled really is that important.

To take my earlier plan one step further--suppose the Bills were to use pick 1a on a QB, and 1b on a LT. The quarterback spends his rookie year on the bench--exactly where all rookie quarterbacks belong. Going into his second year (his first as a starter), he'll be lining up behind an LT who was chosen in the first round, and who's also a second-year player. Seems pretty good to me. I agree that Butler is an injury risk; which makes finding a backup tackle maybe a higher priority than it otherwise would have been. I could see using a fourth round pick on that position. I understand what you're saying about the idea of trading up in the draft. This team has a lot of holes, so you hate to end up with fewer draft choices than you'd started with. But in addition to having a lot of holes, this team also has the problem of a lack of elite-level difference makers at key positions. Other than Jairus Byrd, what game-changers do we have on defense? (Aging veterans excluded.) How many game-changers do we have on offense? And how many of those guys play key positions like QB or LT? I know it's always good to fill a lot of holes--especially when your team is riddled with them. But I think it's even more important for this team to get game changers at two very important, very hard-to-fill positions: QB and LT. If we want to get the right answers in at both those positions in this upcoming draft, we're probably going to have to trade up. I agree with you about the defense needing a DT and two LBs. If the Bills did what I'm suggesting above, those needs wouldn't be addressed until 2011. But I feel that delay is a price this team must be willing to pay if it's going to solve its problems at QB and LT once and for all!

When the draft rolls around, I'd look for a guy who was the best player available (or pretty close). But if several players are of roughly equal caliber, I'd be inclined to take the one who fills whichever need is the more difficult to fill. Good quarterbacks are the hardest to find/go the earliest in the draft. Good LTs and RDEs are also very rare; and go almost as early as good QBs. WRs are up there on that list too; although not quite as high. Obviously, the Bills need to do something about their offensive line. That's beyond all question at this point. But if there's a QB on the board who can be a Peyton Manning or a Matt Ryan for this team for the next 10+ years, there's no way you can walk away from the opportunity. You have to take that QB, because it could be many years before your team has the chance to draft his like again. Now obviously, a quarterback isn't going to succeed unless he has an offensive line. I understand that; and obviously this line needs to be built up quickly. I could see this team taking a QB in the first round, then trading its second and third round picks away to get back into the first round. With that second pick in the first round, it could grab a LT. With Butler coming back at RT, this plan would make the Bills solid at tackle and at QB. While that draft wouldn't fill all our needs, it would at least plug two of the most difficult-to-fill, crucial holes on this team. That would set the team up nicely to fill many of its remaining holes in the 2011 draft.