Orton's Arm

If you look at the first round of a given year's draft, you'll usually see a handful of players who have risen to greatness, a somewhat larger number of players who turned out decently, and a still larger number (about 50%) being busts to varying degrees. I feel teams should respond to this by seeking the types of players who have the potential to join that first, smallest category. By potential for greatness I don't merely mean physical attributes, but also the heart, toughness, and (depending on position) intelligence you'd need to be a great player. You express concern that players would be replaced before they've been given a chance to prove themselves. It's one thing to not draft a player at a position of need. But you take things one step further by refusing to draft a player at a position that may or may not be a need. By this logic, the Bills shouldn't draft Davis, because Everett hasn't been given a chance to prove himself at TE. Never mind whether Davis has the potential to be a Hall of Fame TE. To me, whether Davis will or won't be a great TE is much more interesting than whether Everett has or hasn't been given a chance to prove himself. Likewise, the question of whether Cutler or Leinart will become a Pro Bowl QB is much more relevant to me than whether Losman's been given enough of a chance. At worst, you wind up in San Diego's situation. Had Brees not gotten hurt, San Diego could have franchised him and traded away Rivers. So it's not the end of the world if you have one too many good QBs on your roster. But it is the end of the world--or at least the end of any reasonable Super Bowl hopes--if you have one too few good QBs.

Leinart's looked good to me from what I've seen of him. Maybe you've seen something different.

My opinion of the draft is this: Priority 1: You look for players who have the chance to be great. Greatness gets weighted by position: Joe Montana gets more credit than Adam Vinatari. Priority 2: You try to avoid players with major warning signs such as injury issues. Priority 3: You fill a position of need. Say a big three QB fell to the Bills. First the Bills would have to ask themselves whether they felt this QB had the potential to be the next Montana or Elway. If he does, the next thing you ask is whether there are major warning signs you should be aware of. The final question is whether QB is a position of need. You'd hate to draft a QB in the first round if your starter was an elite QB in the prime of his career, because the chance that you'll upgrade the QB position by doing so is quite small. But the Bills are in a very different position, and there's an excellent chance that a top-3 QB from this year's draft could be an upgrade over Losman.

Not necessarily. You could call a pass play, and keep Royal in to pass protect. Or you could have him run a route, use up a covering defender, and just throw to someone else instead. You could kind of keep defenses honest while this guy's on the field. $2 million a year is a little high for a one-trick TE, but at least he's young.

I'm waiting for the draft before I form a strong opinion of Levy as a GM. You can't always address your team's problems in free agency, for a number of reasons (quality not being there, the players you want signing with other teams, etc.) The guys Levy's found are younger players, so if they work out they can help the Bills for a while. I like that. But the key will be the draft.

It was just one game.

Probably the ones who aren't motivationally challenged are a lot less likely to hit free agency.

Maybe. But Marv's talked about adding another QB to the mix. Maybe he doesn't want either Holcomb or Losman to be his starter.

Not exactly. You have your total salary cap number, which is about $100 million. Of that $100 million, you're only allowed to spend maybe $4 million or so on rookies. (The exact number depends on where you draft.) But every dollar you spend on a rookie counts against your overall cap.

That's Mister Captain Dump-off to you!

Let's look at the best Bills' offensive free agents ever: OL Chris Villarrial Mike Gandy Trey Teague Bennie Anderson QB Doug Flutie Kelly Holcomb WR James Lofton Quinn Early TE Um . . . I guess that Royal guy HB nobody FB Sam Gash (the first time) An offense built around free agency would look . . . a lot like the Bills' offense right now. Of the five starting OL, four were obtained through free agency. The same could be said about Holcomb, who was one of the best available FA QBs the year he was signed. There'd be a downgrade at WR, because the QB would be throwing to guys like Andre Davis instead of Evans and Moulds. There'd be a downgrade at RB, with McGahee being replaced by . . . some random guy. I don't exactly see an offense like this striking fear into the hearts of defensive coordinators around the league.

If I was in a four year rebuilding project, I'd draft offense the first two years, and defense the second two. Or something like that. If you try building your offensive line through free agency, you'll run into three problems: - The best offensive linemen, such as Orlando Pace, will never see free agency. - Free agents have many options open to them, so you'll often find yourself going with plan B or plan C. - Sometimes proven players can get old in a hurry. Chris Villarrial is a good example. He'd proven himself in Chicago, demonstrating all the good qualities you look for in an OL: toughness, mean streak, work ethic, intelligence. But after just two good years of play, he had an injury-plagued year this past year. Now his position is a question mark. You really want continuity on your OL, but it's really hard to get this when your free agent signings don't last very long (such as Villarrial). At the same time, continuity between a QB and his WRs is important to develop too. I remember that as Kelly, Reed, etc. got older, their skill sets declined. But they were still dangerous due to the chemistry and continuity they'd developed over the years. You really do want a guy with you his whole career, especially on offense. Draft picks like Andre Reed and Eric Moulds have had much bigger impacts than free agent signings like Quinn Early. In fact, I can't think of very many free agent signings at all that have significantly helped the Bills' offense ever. James Lofton comes to mind, but not many others.

Maybe the Dolphins are planning on using an early draft pick on a LT.

Stop making sense, I'm not used to it!

Good post.

Sounds like you're speaking from your own experience!

It's not the strength of your arm, it's what you do with it!

I don't know whether you're right about roster bonuses hitting the cap 100% this year. What the original poster was suggesting was converting some of Moulds' base salary into roster bonus. So assuming you're right about how roster bonuses work, there'd be no cap consequences one way or the other. Either way, the full $7 million we're paying Moulds in salary hits the cap this year. My point was that if you paid Moulds the $7 million now, but put off the cap hit for some of that money until later, you'd still get hit with the full $7 million over the long run. It's a sign you're getting smarter!

Fair enough. But just as the players wanted an increase, the owners certainly wanted a decrease. Why should the negotiations have been about how big an increase the players would get? Why not make it about whether it would be an increase or a decrease?

Of the many good points Ralph made, one of the strongest was that the increase in revenues going to the players really hurts the league. Why should the players' pay go from 54.5% to 59.5%? Why not have it go down to 49.5% instead? This, as Ralph pointed out, was a terrible deal for the league. Maybe the reason for the increase in what the players are taking is that the owners spoke with 32 voices, while the players spoke with only one.

Other than Brees, I don't see a whole lot of vet QBs with more upside than Holcomb out there. Holcomb's a decent QB, but his career won't last forever. The Bills need to think about who their starting QB will be once Holcomb hangs up his cleats. A guy like Cutler or (if by some miracle he's available) Leinart could fit the bill nicely.

A roster bonus would not reduce the long-term cap impact. In the long term, the money you pay a player is equal to cap hit. A roster bonus merely pushes the cap hit into some future year is all. With the increased cap, there's less urgency to cut Moulds. You could do so if A) his replacement was already on the roster, or B) the Bills needed the Moulds cap space to sign younger, better players at other positions (such as Bentley), or C) if you had a younger player such as Parrish that you wanted to give a starting position to. But barring one of these three things, it might make sense to keep Moulds for now. Not that I'm the least bit happy about paying him $7 million in new money for just one year of football. There's no way Moulds is worth that.

There are a lot of guys on the current roster that I don't want on the field. Can they all be upgraded in one off-season? I don't think they can be. If the Bills have two free agents they want to sign at SS--both of whom would be better than Wire--then fine. Do it, assuming the value is there in terms of cap space. But if you're drafting a backup SS because you cut Wire . . . well, maybe that draft pick should have been put to better use than upgrading the backup SS. This team has needs almost everywhere.

If you're going to have a whipping boy, it may as well be someone who deserves that distinction. That made my selection easy.

It requires posts that are a lot longer than this one!