Orton's Arm

If we decide to address either the OL or DL with our first pick, #11 is probably not a good place to be. As you point out, the best OT talent is likely to be gone. And you could say the same about the best DL talent (such as Raji). People have talked about the possibility of trading away the 28th overall pick to move up to the third or fourth overall slot in the draft. That might be overdoing it a little. But what about using our second round pick to make a smaller move up? I'd like our first pick in the draft to be a lineman, whether an OT or a DL. And I'd like to see the Bills trade into a draft slot where a lineman of some sort is the best player available. If the Bills go DL with their first pick, they could always use the 28th pick on an OT. Conversely, if the Bills go OT with their first pick, that 28th pick could be used either on an interior offensive lineman, a TE, or--possibly--a DL.

That's a good post, but . . . If you're going to take an offensive lineman early in the draft, left tackle would be the place to do it! The Dolphins took a LT first overall this past draft; which is an important reason why they went from a one win season to a playoff appearance. The St. Louis Rams took a left tackle first overall, and Orlando Pace proved vital to their Super Bowl appearances (including one ring). Jonathan Ogden of the Ravens was, IIRC, taken very early in the draft, and played an important role in the Ravens' success in 2000. I agree with you that a team should not hesitate to build its offensive line using picks from the lower first round through the third or fourth round. There's nothing wrong with that. But a very good LT is well worth an early first round pick.

The 11.5 sacks allowed were Peters' fault alone.

I agree with your first statement--that it's important to behave with class. I disagree with your second statement. How classy do you think it is to accuse someone of taking cocaine just because that person doesn't share your opinion of Rob Johnson's merit as a QB versus Losman's? Rob Johnson did some things well. Very well, in fact. IIRC, his quarterback rating was higher than Jim Kelly's. Clearly, that QB rating masks or ignores the things he did badly (like getting rid of the ball on time, sensing and avoiding pressure, and anything else which could possibly be related to taking sacks). But if you gave him plenty of time to throw, and didn't put him in a situation where he'd have to move around in the pocket to avoid pressure, he could really light up a defense. In fact, he'd look much better, under those conditions, than Losman would have. Johnson was a significantly better, more accurate passer, with a better touch on his passes, than Losman. Johnson had all the physical tools you'd want in your QB--good size, good arm strength, good mobility. Johnson's Achilles heel was that he was a sack waiting to happen. Playing behind the Bills' substandard offensive line only made a bad situation worse. But avoiding sacks isn't exactly an area in which Losman shines; although I'll be the first to say that he was less bad in that department than Johnson. Johnson's other problem was that, because of all those sacks and hits he took, he was injured far too often. Losman has also been injured frequently; albeit not as frequently as Johnson. Losman's biggest strengths are his physical attributes and his long bomb. But Johnson was also good at the long bomb--probably better (or at least more accurate) than Losman. And while Johnson's physical attributes weren't quite as good as Losman's, they were close. Losman's biggest advantages over Johnson are that, of the two, he is moderately less bad about avoiding sacks and injuries. But I don't believe that would be enough to balance out the ways in which Johnson was a significantly better quarterback than Losman. Under most circumstances, you'd be significantly better off with Johnson, rather than Losman, lining up under center.

Please post more often.

It's my understanding that, prior to the 2006 draft, the Bills had identified DT and SS as the two positions of biggest need. They concluded they would get better football players by taking an SS with their first pick and a DT with their second, rather than the other way around. I don't see anything to indicate the front office panicked. But it's safe to say that they could have gotten better football players with both their first round picks, had they not been locked into the idea of taking a SS and a DT with their first two picks.

I agree they are different concepts. In fact, you could make an argument that there's a big difference between, say, the ten best kickers in the league and the ten worst, that this difference makes a significant impact on the outcome of football games, and that general managers should therefore be trying harder to outbid each other for the best kickers. In other words, the positions general managers value and those they should value are not necessarily the same. Determining which positions they do value is just one possible starting point in determining how positions should be valued. I agree that applying my method to individual quarterbacks would be risky, and would frequently lead to inaccurate results. Contracts are forward looking, and are based on a player's expected contribution to the team's success. Often, individual players play at a level that's higher or lower than what had been envisioned when their contracts were signed. This is less of a problem when you average things out over a lot of players, but there will still be some granularity in my method even so. The reason why ST players make so little is not because they contribute little in an absolute sense, but because it's apparently felt that the supply of reasonably competent special teams players may exceed demand. There's no reason for teams to get into bidding wars with each other under those circumstances. Sometimes, a special teams player like Steve Tasker might come along, who contributes a lot more to his team's effort than a normal guy would. And players like that should make considerably more than average special teams players do. And to a certain degree that's the case: Adam Vinateri, for example, signed a big contract. One could argue that special teams players should, in general, be getting paid more than they are, and that general managers are making a mistake by not bidding more heavily for the services of the best special teams players. If you were a general manager who felt this way, it would make sense to try to outbid other teams for the best special teams players. The more general managers who felt this way, the higher special teams players' salaries would become. They certainly contribute, but the question is: how does their contribution compare to the one that could have been made by guys who almost--but didn't quite--make the final roster cut?

I'd debate with you, but it's clearly not worth my time.

I should have been more specific when I wrote that players are paid relative to their contribution to their team. Some of it's due to their expected contribution in an absolute sense, and some is due to how much a given player is expected to help the team above and beyond however much a relatively low priced free agent might have helped. If a team has a replacement player in mind, they're usually not going to be willing to pay top dollar for a particular player. Which can often result in that player leaving via free agency, and receiving top dollar from some other team. The recently signed contracts you mentioned are a result of other teams' general managers deciding how highly they value specific positions. Teams pay $10 million a year to LTs but not to kickers because LT is the more highly valued of the two positions. And if some oddball team--such as the Raiders--did decide to pay its kicker $10 million a year, it's very unlikely other teams would follow suit. Ultimately, if a team decides a specific player is priced too highly based on his position and his likely contribution to the team, that team will walk away from the bidding war. This analysis is probably as good a tool as any at quantifying which positions general managers prioritize, and to what extent. The analysis is, as I mentioned earlier, grainy. If quarterbacks are getting (for example) 10% of the total payroll, it does not mean that general managers, on average, believe quarterbacks are responsible for exactly 10% of the total variation in teams' win/loss records. But it does mean that general managers are not collectively convinced that quarterbacks are responsible for, say, 30 or 40% of their teams' win/loss records. If general managers believed that, they would have bid quarterbacks' salaries up a lot higher, while reducing spending at other positions.

How about this: I'll spell out the assumptions I've made, and then you tell me where we agree and where we disagree. Assumptions: 1. General managers are, on average, highly competent judges of football players and their relative contributions to teams. 2. No team has unlimited resources, due to the salary cap and other spending constraints. By witnessing how teams allocate their scare resources, we can determine which positions general managers most value. 3. Suppose that players at a given position are, on average, being underpaid relative to the impact they are having on football games. Presumably, general managers are smart enough to notice this. Once they figure this out, they'll become willing to spend more money on that position, in order to outbid other general managers while getting good value for their money. This will tend to drive up the average salary at that position. 4. Because of 1-3, the percentage of player salary devoted to a specific position represents a rough consensus of general managers about the relative worth of that position. The picture can be a bit grainy; but it nevertheless represents a fairly good approximation of how general managers have prioritized their spending, and hence, which positions they most value. The method I've described is just one way of looking at which positions general managers tend to value most highly. It's not intended to take the place of watching individual players' contributions on the field. In fact, watching those contributions is the best way of seeing where there might be flaws with the general managers' consensus. I've seen one or two articles contending that certain positions are underpaid, relative to the contributions players at those positions make on the field. Your suggestion would be a place to start. But I think we'd both agree that there's more to the story than that method would imply. For example, let's say that you're comparing two WRs with the exact same stats. But one of those guys put up those numbers while being consistently double covered; while the other guy has spent his career playing across from Jerry Rice. Even though--statistically--the two WRs seem identical, the fact is that the guy who produces despite being double covered should expect to earn more. The (expected) difference in salary represents the fact that general managers have thoroughly evaluated these guys' play, and have concluded that a guy who produces in double coverage has more value to his team than a guy who does not. Of course, this method is far from perfect when used on individual players, because we're all aware of individual players who are wildly overpaid or underpaid based on their on-field performance. But when you take the average of salaries across all the players at a given position, you can get a sense of the extent to which general managers feel that the specific position is contributing to the overall result of football games.

I disagree. Teams have win/loss records--individual players do not. I remember a stretch when the Ravens went 15-1 with Trent Dilfer as their starter--and that 15th win was in the Super Bowl. Does that mean that Trent Dilfer produced one of the finest 16 game stretches of QB play in NFL history? If quarterbacks have individual win/loss records, why not defensive ends? Or left offensive tackles? Or wide receivers? Good play from any of those positions is correlated with winning football games. Some might answer this question by arguing that a quarterback has more influence on the outcome of the game than a player at any other position. But is he really that much more influential? They're paying top-tier left tackles over $10 million a season these days. They wouldn't be doing that unless it was felt the left tackles were influencing the outcome of games--by a lot! To what extent do quarterbacks influence the outcomes of games? Probably the best way to figure that out is to total up the amount of money quarterbacks throughout the league are being paid, and divide that by the total NFL payroll. If quarterbacks were making half the total amount earned by NFL players, for example, it would stand to reason that general managers collectively felt they were responsible for about half the variation in win/loss records. But a more realistic percentage of quarterback pay to total pay is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 10% or 15%. (I don't care enough about this subject to find exact numbers.) But whatever that percentage is, it's got to be a modest fraction of the whole. If quarterbacks, on average, are only getting 10% or 15% or (whatever the percentage may be) of the total NFL payroll, it stands to reason they are only responsible for about 10 - 15% of the variation in teams' win/loss records. This means that when you assign a quarterback a win/loss record, mostly you're crediting or blaming him for the results of random chance. The quarterback of the 2000 Ravens is going to look amazing in any win/loss record keeping system; whereas the quarterback of the '80s Broncos might not.

Very solid post. I agree 100% with your statements about each of these guys, and well as your implications about the front office people that evaluated them. Except that I don't think of our front office people as morons. Their errors--which you've pointed out--were probably due to overconfidence, or reaching for a player at a position of perceived need (SS, DT), while ignoring other, better players who didn't play the very small number of positions in which they were most interested. Hopefully, they'll learn from their mistakes, and will stop reaching for players ahead of where they should be drafted.

The Bills need to sign Jackson to a long-term deal. As for Lynch, they should probably take a wait-and-see approach to him. They can get by without him for three games, and--if they're lucky--this will be the last time he's suspended for doing something stupid. But whether it is or it isn't, there are too many other needs on this team for the Bills to use an early draft pick on a RB.

I'm loath to trade Whitner, because if we do, our coaching staff/front office will go into "the sky will fall unless we reach for a SS with our very first pick" mode. But if our coaches and front office had a more disciplined way of approaching the draft, your idea of trading Whitner would be--potentially--a lot more viable. And I agree that a second round pick is probably about what we could expect from trading him.

Thanks Lori. Your fix worked. And here I was wondering why I was the only one who saw anything wrong with the new interface of TBD. Now I know.

Over the past few hours, I've noticed that things have changed. Instead of the usual view of a discussion thread, I'm being shown the first post in a thread, followed by a link summary of all subsequent posts. If I want to see each of the posts in the thread, I have to click on each and every link in that link summary. Needless to say, the board in this new form is nearly unusable. Is this a bug, or an experiment of some sort?

The bolded statement is a solid point. And the Bills would have to be reasonably sure this wouldn't happen before pulling the trigger. Not that you can be 100% sure of any player's future when you draft him. But I'd want to know that Crabtree was a less risky player than most--especially in terms of work ethic, passion for the game, and ability to stay out of trouble off the field. If the Bills don't feel confident about him in those areas, they should move in a different direction. One possibility for that different direction is to trade down and take Mack. The guy we just signed can play at either center or guard; and I'm pretty sure Mack could be moved to guard if need be.

I agree with the bolded statement, as well as with some of the other things you've written. But I disagree with the implication that you're better off drafting an Aaron Schobel than a Larry Fitzgerald. If you can't keep your quarterback upright, it doesn't matter whether you have Joe Montana or Trent Dilfer back there; or whether your receivers are named Jerry Rice or Russell Copeland. Either way, your offensive attack will be defeated due to the lack of a line. But if the line does its job reasonably well, the quality of your quarterback and receivers matters a lot. If the Bills drafted Crabtree in the first, they should probably take an OG in the second or third. Taking a TE relatively early in the draft wouldn't hurt either. You may be tempted to point out that the Bills don't have a good pass rush; and without that, this defense isn't going to be particularly successful. But let's be realistic here: there are too many holes on this team to fill them all in right away. If the chance to draft a game-changing DL, such as Raji, came along, obviously the Bills would have to consider it very seriously. But it's not likely Raji makes it to #11. Which means that there probably won't be a chance to add a game-changing DL when the Bills pick. Given a choice between a game-changer and a lesser player at a position of need, which do you pick? The Bills faced that choice in 2006, when they could have used the 8th overall pick on Whitner (a position of need) or Cutler (at a position which the Bills felt might not be one of need). With their second pick in the first round, the Bills faced a choice between McCargo (position of need) and Mangold (a better player at a position of lesser perceived need). Had they taken Cutler and Mangold--as I'd wanted them to at the time--they would be in a much better position today. Now the Bills are once again faced with--potentially--choosing between a moderately good player at a position of need, or (possibly) a much better player at a position of lesser perceived need. To me, that decision is fairly obvious. This is not to say the Bills should de-emphasize their lines in general. On the contrary. They should use every reasonable opportunity to improve both lines--especially in the early rounds of the draft. I define a "reasonable opportunity" as a case where the best available lineman is comparable to or better than the best available non-lineman. If the Bills adopt that philosophy toward their lines, then, over the course of two or three drafts, the offensive and defensive lines should be in much better shape than they are today. Add in a few potential superstar non-linemen--such as Crabtree--and this team could become dangerous.

Any time you have an opportunity to add a special player to your team--the kind of guy who changes the complexion of a game--you have to take it. I think that, of the players Mayock believes will be available to us, the player most likely to be that game-changer is Crabtree. I know that may seem counter-intuitive, because we have T.O. this year, and either Hardy or Johnson may step up as our #2 next year. But let's say that, five years from now, Crabtree turns into the next Larry Johnson, and Orakpo and Brown turn out to be solid but unspectacular DEs. The Evans/Crabtree combination would force defenses to choose their poison, and make the Bills' passing attack very difficult to stop. He'd also go a long way toward solving our problems in the red zone. Under this scenario, would you say to yourself, in hindsight, "Gosh, I really wish they'd taken one of the DEs instead"? Or, if you're the Bills, do you grab the special player at #11, and wait until later in the draft to take a solid but unspectacular DE? I'm not saying I'm 100% sure Crabtree will be a special player, or that I'm fully confident that the DEs won't be special players. What I am saying is that, with this pick, you have to put a higher priority on finding a game-changing player than on simply filling one of our myriad holes. This teem needs more game-changers if it's going to do anything worthwhile.

The bolded statement does not ring true to me. Gandy is currently with the Cardinals, but who else went on to do anything in a starting role with some other team? Our LG for that year I don't think did anything after that. Trey Teague signed with the Jets, and I think they had him as a starter for a few games--maybe even a season--before they were able to make do without that stopgap measure. Chris Villarrial had nothing left in the tank after we cut him, and I'm almost certain he didn't receive significant playing time after his Buffalo days were over. And as you mentioned, Mike Williams was no longer a starter after we'd released him. So that's one full case of a guy contributing significantly to some other team's line (Mike Gandy), and another case of a guy being used as a very temporary stopgap (Teague). As far as the quarterback being partially responsible for making his line look good, I'll agree with you to a point. The two things a quarterback can do are these: 1) Getting rid of the ball in a hurry, instead of holding onto it all day. 2) Being adroit about moving around in the pocket. Holcomb did an outstanding job on #1; making his line look significantly better than it really was. I think he did a pretty good job with #2. The line he played behind looked bad because the linemen were bad, not because the quarterback made them look worse than they were. That line would have looked downright awful no matter which quarterback you placed behind it. As far as complaining about the line goes--if you see it either being ignored on draft day, or being filled with busts (Mike Williams) or first contract and out players (Jennings), or free agents no one else really wanted (just about everyone else), and if you see it failing to provide either pass protection or run blocking, and if you see Dr. Z listing the Bills as a team which collapsed due to bad offensive line play (as he did a few years ago), then complaining about the line is a perfectly reasonable and natural response.

I completely agree. Let's say this team had a general policy of holding onto its own best players for their useful careers. With that policy in place, we hold onto both McGee and Greer. With that policy in place, we don't use a first round pick on McKelvin in the 2008 draft. That first round pick could have gone toward building the team at some other position, instead of treading water at CB. As things stand, there's a chance we'll lose McGee once the 2009 season is done, thereby "necessitating" the use of a first round pick for his replacement. If that happens, it would be an outright disaster for this franchise. You can't keep kissing your first round picks goodbye, on first contract and out positions (such as CB), and expect to build a solid core of first rate players.

You express yourself well, so it's going to be hard for me to give you much flak. The one area I'd disagree is that I'd place a somewhat higher ranking on Holcomb. Consider what he had to work with: LT: Mike Gandy LG: some guy--I don't remember who--whom they tried to replace with Mike Williams C: Trey Teague RG: Chris Villarrial RT: Mike Williams This is the worst offensive line I can remember us having which, coming from a Bills fan, is saying a lot! I'm no expert, but I secretly suspect that line may be one of the worst in NFL history. Despite playing behind this putrid line, Holcomb averaged 6.6 yards per pass attempt while he was here. Bledsoe averaged 7.1, 6.1, and 6.5 yards per pass attempt during his stay in Buffalo; falling below Holcomb's level of achievement in two years out of three. And that was with a significantly better offensive line than the one Holcomb had.

1. Holcomb. I know I'm going to take some flak for this. I'm putting Holcomb here not because he was great, but because the other quarterbacks on this list were fatally flawed. If you want to beat Johnson, send pressure. If you want to beat Bledsoe, send pressure up the middle. If you want to beat Losman, double cover his primary target. If you want to beat Todd Collins, place eleven defenders on the football field. In every game Holcomb played from start to finish, the Bills' offense scored at least 14 points. And this was with no offensive line, questionable coaching, and an inconsistent running game. With Holcomb under center, the offense produced. Fans may not be happy with all the dinking and dunking he did, but he produced. Take that game in Foxboro. People remember that game because he threw a very short pass to Moulds on 4th and 11. But how often does a Bills game in Foxboro come down to a late fourth quarter drive in the first place? How often does our offense play well enough during the first three quarters for that fourth quarter to actually matter? And on the drive in question, the Bills had already moved the chains once or twice, and the Patriots' defense was starting to look vulnerable. Then, on a crucial third and long play, Holcomb completed a pass to Moulds for a first down. Unfortunately, the officials decided to call it back, using some ticky-tack offensive pass interference penalty on Moulds as their excuse. Then on that fourth and long play, Parrish was to be Holcomb's primary target (he was a rookie with zero NFL catches at that point). But the Patriots shifted immediately before the snap, doubling Parrish. On that play, a perfect quarterback would have realized that he was getting much better pass protection than usual, and that he could afford to stand there in the pocket until Sam Gash came open. But I don't think many of the other guys on this list would have made the throw to Gash. Bledsoe wouldn't have (this was against the Patriots, after all). Losman wouldn't have (he isn't exactly known for seeing his third and fourth reads). Rob Johnson probably would have. Rob Johnson clearly was willing to stand in the pocket and wait for guys to come open. But Johnson clearly had other problems. Holcomb's Achilles Heel was his lack of arm strength. But, considering his lack of arm strength, he was clearly able to accomplish a lot. And even though the Bills' offensive options were limited because of his lack of arm strength, the fact that our offense always produced at least 14 points a game with him under center demonstrates that no one, not even the Patriots, was able to figure out a way to stop him completely. 2. Doug Flutie. His first year as a starter was quite good. He produced more than Holcomb, albeit under better circumstances. His level of production dropped off precipitously during his second year here. We kept hearing how he played "well enough to win" when it was clear the Bills were winning despite Flutie, not because of him. Like Holcomb, Flutie lacked the arm strength with which to make all the throws (though Flutie's arm was stronger than Holcomb's). Flutie also had good mobility; which Holcomb clearly did not. Where I feel Holcomb rises above Flutie is in his ability to dink and dunk his way down the field, despite receiving no pass protection whatsoever. When teams focused on taking away the short stuff, the Flutie-led offense faltered. I think that teams were focused on taking away the short stuff against Holcomb as well--they knew he was no long bomb threat--but Holcomb produced anyway. 3. Bledsoe. His first games as a Bill probably represented the best eight game stretch by any Bills QB ever. After that, he was mediocre at best. Definitely a sack waiting to happen; albeit not to the same extent as a certain other quarterback on this list. He ranks lower than Holcomb because with Holcomb, we could go toe-to-toe with the Patriots, and come close to winning. With Bledsoe at QB, we were sure to get crushed. Not only that, but a Bledsoe game against the Patriots would involve Bledsoe playing very poorly, and looking defeated and dejected on the sidelines--mourning his defeat--as early as the second or third quarter. 4. Trent Edwards. This is a very hard player to rank. If he's the same guy we saw the first five or six games of the season, he clearly belongs near or at the top of this list. If he's the same guy we saw against 3-4 defenses/8 men in coverage, he probably belongs somewhere rather lower. When he plays well, he can kill a defense with a million small cuts. And while his arm strength is not spectacular, it's good enough to allow the occasional long bomb to Evans. 5. Rob Johnson. If the Bills had a Pro Bowl offensive line, and Pro Bowl level blitz pickup, Rob Johnson would be the top quarterback on this list. A very good, accurate passer when given time to throw. His intermediate to deep passing game was a thing of beauty. But he had zero pocket awareness whatsoever, took more sacks than a kleptomaniac unleashed upon a manufacturer of plastic bags, and was often injured. It's frustrating that he never learned to sense pressure or to get rid of the ball quickly, because he clearly had so much potential to be good. 6. J.P. Losman. A player with all the physical tools to be a good quarterback, and none of the mental tools. He had some success running a very simplified version of the Bills' offense during the second half of the 2006 season. And perhaps he could still have some successes in such a scheme, assuming defenses didn't catch on. He throws a good long bomb, has good scrambling ability, and can sometimes throw a good pass down the sidelines after being forced to roll out of the pocket. He's basically the Bills' answer to Kordell Stewart (and, not coincidentally, drafted by the same guy who took Stewart). 7. Todd Collins. A dismal failure while he was here.

Changing FB to P9 sounds like a good idea. P4 for OC and P2 for OG sounds about right. Or you could assign both positions to P3, on the theory that the guy we just signed (I can't spell his name) can play either OG or OC. P3 sounds about right for DT. I don't think ILB should be higher than P4. The Bills have Bryan Scott (a good SS) and Whitner, who can play either SS or FS. I'd prefer a FS to round things out, but I wouldn't go any higher than P4 even for FS. Maybe SS should be P6 or lower.

I agree that we could use an upgrade at the #4 WR position. It's not this team's most urgent need, but definitely one worth filling. However, there's a chance that need could be filled from within, by none other than James Hardy. He's gotten off to a slow start, and his injury will set him back further. But there's a chance he'll be able to provide a noticeable upgrade to Parrish, especially during the second half of the season. I envision him as a situational player for the time being; the kind of guy you call upon when you're in the red zone. Like you said, Steve Johnson isn't a sure thing. But there's a lot of optimism about him, and probably with good reason. You start off by making a mental checklist of the things that could go wrong with a player. And then you cross things off that list as the player proves those specific things won't be a problem. The optimism about Johnson exists because a lot of things have already been crossed off his list. He isn't going to fail due to a lack of size. He isn't going to fail because of bad hands. He probably isn't going to fail because of a lack of mental aptitude or a lack of on-field recognition. He probably isn't going to fail due to a lack of desire or work ethic. There are still some things on his list that haven't yet been crossed off, and we can't know that he'll be a good player until those things are gone. But things look pretty good thus far. I agree there are risks in bringing back our current WR corps as-is. You're basically betting that either Johnson or Hardy will step up and have a solid year to take the pressure off of Evans/Reed. But I feel this is a calculated risk worth taking. Not only are you giving players like Johnson a much-needed chance to show what they can do, you're also clearing up money for use on other needs. Now, you may be tempted to point out that the Bills are way under the salary cap. But, for us, the salary cap is no longer the limiting factor. The salary cap has risen dramatically in the last few years, even while shared revenues have remained stagnant. In the past (for example under Butler) the Bills organization could afford to spend right up to the salary cap. This is no longer the case. Every dollar that we put into the pocket of someone like Coles is one less dollar we'll have with which to extend our existing players. Greer is a free agent this year, and McGee is entering into the last year of his contract. If we lose both those guys, odds are that this front office will use yet another first round pick on a CB! That would clearly starve other areas of the team for much-needed high round draft picks. And--believe me--there are other areas of this team which need those high draft picks! The Bills need to prioritize their spending. And, frankly, keeping either McGee or Greer on board is a much higher priority than signing an undersized, aging WR who won't necessarily provide that big an upgrade over Johnson. And even supposing Coles to be an upgrade over Johnson this year, will next year's somewhat older, slower Coles be an upgrade over a Steve Johnson who's entering year 3 of his career? And are the Bills so confident of this supposed upgrade that they're willing to risk the disaster of allocating yet more first round picks to the defensive secondary?