Orton's Arm

If Miami's this desperate for a QB, we could always trade them Holcomb or Losman. With luck, either QB could get at least a 3rd round pick from Miami.

Bear in mind that Peyton Manning came back for his fourth year, despite the fact that he could have been chosen in the top five had he come out a year early.

Not sure how you know where Vic's opinions come from or don't come from. Is this something you thought of yourself, or are you just putting a spin on what other people tell you? As for why I like Vic's opinion, it's because I remember him from when he used to write for Shout! His columns were the ones I looked forward to the most, and what he wrote usually made a lot more sense than most things you'd see.

My estimation of Ngata before having read the article wasn't particularly high. I still would rather have the Bills draft someone else, but now I'd be less unhappy if they took Ngata.

I found this article by Vic. It really caused me to improve my estimate of Ngata, because I respect Vic's judgement.

You sound more convincing this time around. If the only option is to go one-and-done with Nate, the Bills should trade him instead. But if it's a disagreement about contract numbers, you're right in saying the Bills could use the 2006 season to evaluate whether Nate is worth the kind of money he's asking for. Having said that, the potential of locking Nate up long-term, while useful, isn't as good as a long-term deal would be. Let's say Nate has an outstanding season for 2006. There's a chance he could start up that, "I'm the best CB in the NFL and expect to be paid accordingly" routine again. I think that it becomes more expensive to franchise a player two years in a row. If so, Nate's bargaining position would become more powerful after the 2006 season. He'd have an incentive to be difficult to negotiate with, knowing that some team with unused salary cap space would throw crazy money at a good, young CB like him.

I strongly disagree with this sentiment. The Bills should be looking for long-term value, not one-and-done propositions. If Nate isn't willing to sign a fair, long-term contract, the Bills should clearly trade him. On the other hand, if the Bills sense Nate would be willing to spend his career in Buffalo, then obviously he'd be a lot more valuable to the Bills, and they should be that much less willing to trade him away.

Your main point seems to be that Nate has more trade value than just a five place jump in the draft. If you're right, the Bills could offer Nate + 8th overall for a 3rd round pick + 3rd overall. But keep in mind that it's expensive to move up five places when you're looking at very early draft picks. The Giants, who picked 4th overall, gave up their 1st round pick in the following year's draft, plus some other stuff, to move up just three places. While moving up is expensive, it's worth it if you can get the right player.

In 2005, Nate got beaten more often than an egg at a chef school. Dean, can you promise the Bills Nate will return to 2004 form? Can you promise them Nate will sign a long-term deal? I read an article which stated the talks with Clements are "preliminary" and that there isn't as much contact between the Bills and Nate's agent as there had been a few weeks ago. Confusing this situation with a done deal is wishful thinking on your part. The Bills have essentially four options for their first round pick: 1. Draft a QB 2. Trade up for an elite difference maker 3. Draft the best available non-QB at #8 4. Trade down I don't want to turn this into another QB thread, so I'll ignore option 1. Option 2--trading up for an elite difference maker--could give the Bills the next Julius Peppers or Levi Jones. This team could use more elite difference makers, especially on the lines. Then there's option 3--drafting the best available non-QB at #8. If the big three QBs all go in the top 7, option 3 is a good one. But if at least one of those QBs falls to Buffalo, then odds are that Bush, Williams, Ferguson, Hawk, and Davis are all off the boards. No sense in reaching for a player like Ngata at #8 when players of similar quality will be available in the middle of the first round. Trading down is a viable plan, especially if the right deal was available. I wouldn't mind having extra picks in a nice, deep draft like this one. The main situation I want to avoid is one where we stay at #8, don't get a QB, and don't get one of the five best non-QBs.

Hi TD, and welcome to the boards.

They could have concerts in their stadium. May as well put it to use in the offseason.

1. Take someone who slipped (Williams, Ferguson, Hawk, etc.) 2. Davis 3. Cutler 4. Trade down

My preference would be to trade away Nate Clements plus our first for their first. It's not clear how much longer the Bills can hold onto him anyway, so we may as well extract the trade value. Besides, this team could use a franchise LT such as Ferguson.

Okay, so you've drafted a QB in one of the lower rounds, and you've seen him practice for a year. Now it's draft time again. If you take another QB in the lower rounds, you have to get rid of the guy you drafted last year. Was one year of practice enough information for you to decide you don't want last year's QB draft pick any more? It's hard to tell how good a QB is from practice alone. It didn't become clear that Brady was a better QB than Bledsoe, until Brady actually got out on the field and played. Favre's first team was apparently unimpressed enough with his practices to have been willing to trade him away.

I don't know what I'm doing agreeing with you on a QB-related thread, but I guess there's a first time for everything.

You raise the issue of other ways to address the OL besides just first-day draft picks; mentioning 2nd day picks and free agency. I'll address these two issues separately. Second Day Draft Picks While it's too early to evaluate the 2nd day picks from 2005, we can look at the guys from 2001 - 2004. I believe I'm correct in saying that only three players from the second day of those drafts are still with the team: McGee, Euhus, and Aiken. Given that 21 players were chosen during that timeframe, you're looking at a 1/7 chance of any given pick working out. Other teams also experience low success percentages for their second day picks, which is why picks in later rounds have so much less trade value than do earlier picks. From 2001 - 2004, TD used seven 2nd day picks on offensive skill players, as opposed to just four picks on offensive linemen. While this isn't as bad as his ratio on the first day of the draft, it's still not the 6:5 skill:OL ratio you'd expect to see based simply on the number of players on the field. Free Agency Typically, successful teams build mostly through the draft, and use free agency to acquire the last few pieces of the puzzle. This is especially true for offensive linemen, because continuity is so important to having a good line. The goal is to draft a given OL, and have him spend his entire career with your team. This creates continuity. Too often, the alternative is what the Bills experienced with Chris Villarrial. One of the best available free agent OL the year he was signed, Villarrial provided just two good years for the Bills. After an injury-plagued year this past season, his position has become a question mark. Unless you can sign an offensive lineman at a very early point in his career--as the 49ers did with Jennings--it's going to be very difficult to achieve continuity on the OL by using free agency. Assuming your free agent OL have the same 3 year longevity as Villarrial, you're looking at replacing an average of nearly two OL each year. Not only will your OL have high turnover, it will constantly have to endure poor play from veterans who, like Villarrial, faded fast. Overall, TD's investments in the OL have tended to be minimal. More often than not, he'd choose to draft the OL on the second day of the draft than on the first day. As for free agent signings, he often went after cheaper players like Anderson or Gandy, instead of breaking the bank on more expensive OL. His minimal investments brought minimal returns.

The guy I was most thinking of when I made that post was Mike Williams. But it wasn't just him--it was a general sense the team's accomplishments were less than you'd expect based on its level of talent.

Okay. Losman would be a lousy backup for a CFL team, while Holcomb is star material! Just kidding, btw. One thing I'd like to add to this discussion is the importance of depth on the defensive line. If your defensive line has sufficient depth, you can get a good pass rush in the 4th quarter, and the run will be a lot less likely to open up in the second half.

What's your opinion of the Joseph interview? It's one thing for a guy to make it sound like he's humble/hungry/whatever, but another for him to remember "everything about every opponent he faced in his four years at Oklahoma."

From what I've heard, the way to attack a small, quick defense is to run right at it. Trying to break runs to the outside usually isn't a good idea, because the defense will be too fast for that to work. But run right at them--put muscle against muscle instead of quickness against quickness, and see what happens. Not that this particular trait makes all small, quick defenses bad at stopping the run. While they may be better suited to stopping outside runs than runs up the middle, a talented cover 2 defense will be able to deal with both.

I'll grant that from a sheer talent evaluation standpoint, the 2001 draft was strong. The first four picks all have gone on to have reasonable to good NFL careers. But a lot of this success was wasted because TD didn't fit this draft into a bigger picture: - Clements' contract has expired. Will he remain with the Bills? Would TD have franchised him, or would he have let him walk as Antoine Winfield did? - Schobel is a success story. - Henry did provide a few good years, but that 2nd round pick could have been used on the OL instead. - Whatever success Jennings may find after year 4 of his career will help the 49ers, not the Bills. When you get something right from a talent evaluation standpoint--as TD did in 2001--it's important to capitalize on this success. TD didn't.

My main problem with TD was that he never acted like a man with a vision of what he wanted to accomplish. Instead, we saw a little of this, a little of that. Actions that seemed like a good idea at the time, only to backfire later. Contrast this to the Patriots. First, Belichick started by identifying the type of man he wanted on his teams: smart, tough, hard working, passionate about football. Had TD had a similar vision, he never would have touched Mike Williams--or a lot of the other players he took. Next, Belichick created stability for the offensive and defensive schemes being employed. TD had the opportunity to do this too. When he came on board, the Bills' defense was one of the best-coached in the league. All TD had to do was hire an offensively-minded coach who would fix the offense while leaving the defensive coaching alone. Instead, the final four coaching candidates for 2001 were all defensive men. Because of the switch to the 46 defense, much of the defensive talent Butler had acquired had to be let go. Moreover, this switch worsened the quality of the Bills' defensive coaching, while doing nothing to solve their offensive coaching woes. Belichick drafted well, and made sure his most successful draft picks spent their best years in New England. Because of this, the Patriots have a core of young, highly productive players they can build around. If Belichick let a guy go for salary cap reasons, it was usually a guy whose best years were behind him, but who still wanted to be paid like he was in his prime. Lawyer Milloy, Ty Law, and Drew Bledsoe come to mind. In contrast, TD tried to save cap space by letting some of his young, core players leave in free agency. Antoine Winfield and Jonas Jennings are good examples. The cap space TD saved on those guys he used to overpay players like Lawyer Milloy. Instead of building through the draft, TD tried to use free agency and traded draft picks to quickly assemble a winning veteran team. These veterans got old in a hurry, resulting in the 2005 collapse. If the Bills lacked an identity, it was because TD lacked a vision. This was why he failed as GM.

Look at the long-term results from the 2001 draft: Round 1: Nate Clements. Result: contract expired after 5 years. Round 2a: Aaron Schobel. Result: solid starter locked up long-term. Round 2b: Travis Henry. Result: failed to provide enough of an upgrade over Antowain Smith to have been worth a 2nd round pick. Round 3: Jonas Jennings. Result: Jennings was allowed to hit free agency after just four years. Lost to San Francisco. Rounds 4 - 7: Brandon Spoon, Marques Sullivan, Tony Driver, Dan O'Leary, Jimmy Williams, Reggie Germany, Tyrone Robertson. Result: none. After five years, the lone unblemished success story of this draft is Aaron Schobel.

Last year's Bills roster was lacking in many ways, but the overpaid coward department wasn't one of them.