Orton's Arm

On February 5th, 2011, 1billsfan wrote the following: The Bills will certainly rue the day they select marginal talents like Miller, Dareus or whomever over Green. Joe the Sixpack wrote, "What dilemna? You thank your lucky stars the BPA in the entire draft is still available. Then run up to the mic and announce you're taking Green." BILLriant wrote, "Aj is likely to fall to us at #3 and would be very hard to pass on no matter what our needs are." I wrote "The Bills could justify taking Green in the first, Ponder in the second, and a RT in the third." Koufax wrote the following Wayne Cubed wrote "If the #3 pick comes up and Green is there, the Bills would be wise to take him." Admittedly, the people who wrote these things were in the minority. Levels of support for Green varied between those who were merely open to the idea of taking him (such as me) and those who flatly stated that Green would be a much better pick than Dareus (such as 1billsfan). At least thus far, 1billsfan's position--about both Green and Dareus--has been reinforced by subsequent events.

I'd rather the Bills go 2-14 this year, and get the franchise QB, than have them go 6-10 or 7-9 this year, only to hear, "We couldn't draft a franchise QB because all the good QBs were gone long before we picked." This organization hasn't had a real long term answer at QB ever since Kelly hung up his cleats.

And by not marrying the mother, he saved the cost of a wedding.

I don't know who the next owner of the Bills will be, but it wouldn't surprise me if it was someone reminiscent of John Elwes. Who was John Elwes, you ask? Elwes was an English politician, born in 1714. He inherited his uncle's fortune, worth about $25 million in today's dollars. ******* On assuming his uncle's fortune, however, Elwes also assumed his uncle's miserly ways. He went to bed when darkness fell so as to save on candles. He began wearing only ragged clothes, including a beggar's cast-off wig he found in a hedge and wore for two weeks. His clothes were so dilapidated that many mistook him for a common street beggar, and would put a penny into his hand as they passed. To avoid paying for a coach he would walk in the rain, and then sit in wet clothes to save the cost of a fire to dry them. His house was full of expensive furniture but also moulding food. . . . Rather than spend the money for repairs he allowed his spacious country mansion to become uninhabitable. A near relative once stayed at his home in the country, but the bedroom was in a poor state. So much so, that the relative was awakened in the night by rain pouring on him from the roof. After searching in vain for a bell, the relative was forced to move his bed several times, until he found a place where he could remain dry. On remarking the circumstance to Elwes in the morning, the latter said: "Ay! I don't mind it myself... that is a nice corner in the rain!" . . . Elwes lost huge sums of money to his colleagues in unrepaid loans, uncollected debts and dubious investments. He believed that one did not ask a gentleman for money, regardless of the circumstances. On one notable occasion Elwes, unsolicited, lent Lord Abingdon £7,000 [about $700,000 in today's money] to enable him to place a bet at Newmarket. On the day of the race, Elwes rode on horseback from Suffolk to the racetrack with nothing to eat for fourteen hours save a piece of pancake which he had put into his pocket two months earlier and which he swore to a startled companion was “as good as new”. . . . At his neglected estates he continued to forbid repairs, joined his tenants in postharvest gleaning, and sat with his servants in the kitchen to save the cost of a fire elsewhere. Even on the coldest day of winter he was known to sit fireless at his meals, saying that eating was "exercise enough" to keep him warm. If a stableboy put out hay for a visitor's horse, Elwes would sneak out and remove it. . . . His barrister, who drew up his £800,000 [$80 million] will, was forced to undertake his writings in the firelight by the dying man's bedside in order to save the cost of a candle. . . . After having lived on only £50 [$4,000] a year, Elwes left £500,000 (Approx £28,000,000 as of 2010) to his two sons who were born out of wedlock. ********

I like your creativity! The Steelers of the '70s had the Steel Curtain. What do we have now? The Lace Curtain. As far as I'm concerned, the Lace Curtain is the name of our defense.

Let's say (hypothetically speaking) that QBs will be taken 1st, 3rd, 7th, 20th, and 25th overall in the upcoming draft. Let's also say that the Bills get the 12th overall pick. They could use that 12th overall pick to take the guy who would otherwise have gone 20th overall (the mini-reach you described). Or they could trade up for the guy scheduled to go 7th overall. In general, I would prefer trading up to the mini reach.

I agree it's possible that Dalton will become a franchise QB. If he does, Nix will look foolish for having passed on him. Many other teams will look foolish for having passed on him as well: every team in the league passed on him at least once. That being said, Dalton represents the general category of QB Nix should be taking: a good, accurate QB, and someone who'd done a good job as a pocket passer at the college level. The more QBs like that which you draft, the more chances you give yourself for success. > The problem with your scenario of waiting for the exceptional prospect is that there are no guarantees > that when your turn comes to draft this next year or the next ten years that you will be in position to take a Luck or Griffin III caliber qb. Agreed. It wouldn't be much of an exaggeration to say that Nix is betting his job on the quality of the upcoming QB class. It's a high risk move. > If you will only date an Angelina Jolie type girl then you will not be dating very much. True. But if you want a QB who can take you to the big dance, a Reese Witherspoon or a Gwenneth Paltrow is much more likely to get you there than a Roseanne Barr.

> The Cards gave up 9 sacks on Sunday. So you're telling me that if the Moon is full, the planets correctly aligned, three goats sacrificed on a stone altar at midnight, and the Cardinals line up only four offensive linemen, Mario Williams might get a pressure?

I completely agree with your Dalton versus Fitz comparison. But suppose--for the sake of argument--that Buddy takes a significantly better QB than Dalton in the upcoming draft. A draft selection like that would justify a lot of the other actions Buddy has taken, or failed to take as the case may be. (Including his failure to take Dalton himself.) For Buddy, the downside to getting a real QB is that it would make his decision to go with Dareus over A.J. Green look worse than it already does. The upside to getting a real QB is that Buddy gets to keep his job.

It could be called the byline. Everyone runs right by.

Your goal should not be to salvage the season. Your goal should be to tank the season, then get the best possible QB in the upcoming draft!

> But it's funny how the NYC media is working hard to project just the opposite. Ah, the NYC media. Such a track record of intellectual integrity, honesty, unbiased reporting . . . Except just this once, apparently.

This.

I admire your loyalty to Fitz. As a human being, he seems like a great guy, and the kind of player I'd love to see succeed. Unfortunately, not every good human being is necessarily a good football player. Forget whether the defense was good or bad, or whether you like or dislike his receiving corps. Ask yourself this question: how accurate were his throws? Don't worry about the other stuff when evaluating Fitz. Ask only that one question. There have been many times in Tom Brady's career when he's had a bad receiving corps. But you could still tell he was a franchise QB. Based on the accuracy of Fitz's throws, do you think he's at or near franchise level?

> Because right now you're getting the worse of both worlds - no pressure and guys getting behind your secondary for giant chunks of yardage. I agree that when the Bills rush four and drop seven back into coverage, they've typically gotten the worst of both worlds. No pressure, and not much in the way of pass coverage or big play prevention. But! On the rare occasions when they have blitzed--at least against the 49ers--they got the worst of both worlds also. No pressure from the blitz--why on Earth would there be?--and little in the way of pass coverage.

Come Sunday, they'll be facing one of the worst 2-3 teams in NFL history.

> Not sure it would have mattered. Do you think that Fitz could get the ball to him? I agree that a franchise QB would change the entire equation for the Bills. But even though Fitz is by no means the answer, he's still good enough for us to have figured out that Stevie Johnson is a good WR. If we'd drafted Green, we'd think, he's also a very good receiver. And think of how much more he could accomplish with a real quarterback. > They use the very best selections primarily on DBs and RBs. And this didn't stop with Nix. In the past, they've used 50% of their first picks of the draft on RBs + DBs. That 50% needs to come down to around 10 - 20%--but not down to 0%. Spiller is an example of a justifiable use of an early pick on a RB. The Antowain Smith, Travis Henry, Willis McGahee, and Marshawn Lynch picks represent the misuse of valuable draft picks. Antoine Winfield was a good use of a first round pick--or would have been had he not been allowed to go first-contract-and-out! The Donte Whitner pick was a textbook example of what not to do on draft day. I'd argue that the Bills' excessive focus on RBs and DBs is a symptom of an underlying problem: shortsightedness. Consider the following strategic question. Option A: use a first round pick on a DB, let him go first-contract-and-out, then use a first round pick on his replacement. Option B: use first round picks on players expected to be core contributors to your team for the next decade. To someone building toward a long-term strategic vision, option B sounds a lot better than option A. But to someone looking for a quick fix, and focused on filling short-term holes, Option A can sound really good. What I'm suggesting is that the Bills get rid of the short-term, quick fix thinking which has resulted in so many first round picks squandered on a multitude of DBs and RBs. Instead they should build toward a long-term vision, piece by piece. Sometimes a RB or DB is exactly the long-term piece you need. Such might well have been the case with Spiller. A.J. Green represents a more valuable and harder-to-duplicate piece than Dareus; especially for a team building toward a long-term strategic vision.

Nice post. > I think we agree completely on that (franchise QB and WR needs). I agree that the Bills have holes at both positions, and that filling those is key. That said, I think that adding a franchise QB is much more important than adding another WR. if you had to, you could get by with the receiving corps we have. Stevie Johnson is a good WR with a knack for getting open. Graham is quietly evolving into a good deep threat--or would be if he had a QB who could get him the ball. Chandler is normally a sure-handed TE and a good target. Jackson and Spiller are good options coming out of the backfield. But there's a difference between a receiving corps that's good enough to get you by, and a receiving corps which is feared. When the Cardinals took Larry Fitzgerald, they didn't necessarily have a hole at WR. That selection caused a few raised eyebrows, and generated some criticism. No one is criticizing them now! Any time you have a choice between a good player and a special player, you take the special player. Regardless of short-term needs. The only exception would be if the special player played a position of relatively low value, such as OG. But a player like Fitzgerald can destroy you if you cover him one-on-one. Even if you double cover him he can still hurt you pretty badly. The Bills had a choice between a good player (Dareus) and a special player (A.J. Green). I wish they'd taken Green. > Frankly, we need to tank this season and get our QB. I wholeheartedly endorse the above. I also strongly agree with the paragraph leading up to that statement.

The Bills' next head coach should have the following attributes: Someone who has never been an NFL head coach before. Someone who is an unconventional thinker. Someone who creates trends, not someone who follows them. Someone who is clearly more intelligent than most other NFL coaches, as demonstrated by his superior command of Xs and Os. Most of the names I've seen thrown around in this discussion don't meet the above criteria. There is one name which does, but I'll leave it to The Senator to be the first to mention that name. Quite possibly there are other candidates who also meet the above criteria.

Very good post! I'd also like to thank Bill for once again having written some good posts of his own. This thread is always a treat, even after a loss. I wish I'd joined you in your advocacy for AJ Green. Going into that draft, I threw out hints that the Bills should strongly consdier him as a possibility. But I never came right out and said they should take him. I wish I'd listened to my gut; which told me Green would become a much better football player than Dareus. I'd argue that whatever the Bills thought they were doing, they did not replicate the New York Giants model. The Bills' DL may look good on paper, but its on-field accomplishments are not comparable to the Giants' DL. The Giants' D also made tackles in the running game; and played tight pass coverage with their back seven. You have to earn everything you get against that defense! But the single most important difference between the Giants and the Bills is that they have a franchise QB; whereas we have Ryan Fitzpatrick. If a game becomes a defensive struggle, the Giants have a defense which can slug it out against anyone. If a game becomes a shootout, they have a franchise QB to do their shooting. And they've surrounded him with a good supporting cast. I fully agree that the Bills' biggest priority this offseason needs to be a franchise QB. Do whatever you have to do, trade up if need be, but get that franchise QB!

I agree with this. Just to add to what you've written: San Francisco probably wanted to get their backups some experience in regular season games. They probably figured that telling their backups on offense to try to score points represented better experience (and better confidence-building for them) than telling them to run, run, run, punt. As for any embarrassment the Bills might have experienced in the process: like you said, it's the Bills' job to stop that. Besides which, the Bills deserved to be embarrassed! Any team which plays that badly should be embarrassed, especially when they're getting paid $100 million to deliver that level of play.

> Things can only get better. This is the very first time I've heard that sentiment uttered on a Bills discussion board, and I find it very comforting.

I disagree with 100% of your post. > But I find it crazy how he gets blamed for everything wrong with the team. Who? Does anyone here really think that Fitz is the only thing wrong with this team? Once the season started, it became clear--to both Fitz's supporters and detractors--that this team doesn't have the defense we all thought it did. No one here is arguing otherwise! > The missed deep balls in this game aren't why we're losing, Wrong again. The missed deep balls are part of why we're losing. Each bad defensive play represents another part of why we're losing. > but some posters are so blinded by their fitz hate they can't see the porous defence in front of them. You and I must be reading different discussion boards. I've seen nothing here which remotely supports what you've written.

I agree that yards per attempt isn't always perfect. Rob Johnson's career YPA significantly overstates the value of his accomplishments, for example, because YPA does not take sacks into account; and therefore does not reflect the fact he was a sack waiting to happen. YPA is a good starting point for evaluating QBs. But then you have to take a closer look, to see whether YPA is understating or overstating the quality of that QB's play. > But when one looks at the championship games (not just SB) the last two years, it's easy to see it's > not always those top offensive teams that make it, or win if they make it. Guys like Alex Smith and Joe Flacco are significantly better QBs than Fitzpatrick. But neither Smith nor Flacco are franchise QBs. If you have a solid QB like Smith or Flacco, and if you build a very good, complete team around him, you can go a long way. But the deeper you go into the postseason, the more likely you are to encounter the most feared category of opponent. The kind of opponent most to be feared is a team which has a franchise QB and a good, complete team to go with him. A guy like Eli Manning or Tom Brady changes the equation. You could point out that there have been times when teams have won the Super Bowl without having had a franchise QB. The Ravens of 2000 come to mind, as do the Bucs of 2002. The Ravens had one of the three best defenses in NFL history. Another reason why they won was their great OL; led by a Hall of Fame-level LT in Jon Ogden. They also had Jamal Lewis at RB and a Pro Bowl TE in Shannon Sharpe. But another reason why that team won was because of the comparative weakness of their postseason opponents. Not once in the postseason did they encounter the most feared category of opponent: a complete team with a franchise QB. Oddly enough, only one of their postseason opponents (the Raiders) had a franchise-level QB; and Rich Gannon was knocked out of the game at the end of the first half. Their opponent in the Super Bowl--the Kerry Collins-led Giants--was a much weaker team than the Eli Manning-led Giants team which beat the Patriots. Similarly, the Tampa Bay Bucs did not face any franchise QBs in the postseason leading up to their postseason win; again except for Rich Gannon in the Super Bowl. (I'm referring to Gannon as a franchise QB not because he had a franchise career--he didn't--but because he played at a franchise level later in his career.) Nine of the last ten Super Bowl winners had a franchise QB. In some of those cases the teams in question had achieved the ideal. (A franchise QB + a complete team.) In other cases the franchise QB was good enough to compensate for weaknesses at other positions.

> Should those interceptions count against the QB, seeing as he's passing more and taking a lot more risks? I see at least three categories of INTs. 1) Those which result from badly thrown passes. 2) Those which result from a bad play by the receiver. 3) Risk taking. Cases in which even a perfectly thrown ball would give a defender a chance to intercept. For interceptable passes in that third category, my instinct would be to give QBs a pass. (No pun intended.) Maybe break it out into a separate stat if you want, and give it a label like "risk taking throws."