Orton's Arm

I think you and I agree more than we disagree about Lynch and about Marv's drafting strategy. Taking Lynch 12th overall is like paying $300,000 for a brand new Buick. Sure, maybe the car runs well, and is reliable in bad weather. Maybe it gets you from point A to point B. But no way is it worth $300,000. I agree it was a mistake to trade away McGahee. The two third rounders we got for him were nice, and better than the fourth + 6th rounder we got for Lynch. (One potential reason we got more for McGahee than for Lynch is, as JohnC pointed out, the character concerns associated with Lynch. McGahee may also have been viewed as the better RB.) The bigger issue is that unless a RB is considered elite/game changing, most front offices aren't willing to spend high draft picks on him. Nor should they be! Even if a front office is willing to use a lower first round pick on a non-elite RB--as the Colts did a few years ago when they took Joseph Addai in the lower first round--they realize that most RBs tend to have short careers. Nobody is going to trade away all that much for an Addai with 4 - 5 years of mileage on him. For a team that's already a serious Super Bowl contender, shorter-term value propositions like that might make sense. For a rebuilding team, such decisions merely indicate short-sightedness.

I agree that a main problem is the Bills' pattern of failing to select QBs early in the draft, coupled with their failure to find a franchise QB. One year of that could perhaps be justified. Ten+ years, not so much so. At some point, you have to say, "This is the year we pull the trigger. This is the year we take The Guy." That didn't happen under TD. Sure, some could point to Losman. But if Losman was the QB TD really wanted, why did he try to trade up for Roethlisberger? I'm not convinced that happened under Marv either, even if we were told that Trent Edwards was supposedly this first round talent who somehow slipped to the third round. Nor has that happened under Nix. As for the 2011 draft: I've read that Locker is a much more accurate QB than his college stats made him look. The problem--at least according to the article I read--was that Locker would throw perfectly accurate passes, only to have his receivers drop them. The pre-draft evaluation for Ponder reminds me of the pre-draft evaluation for Drew Brees. Brees was picked 32nd overall, which is about where many experts thought Ponder would go. Both had established themselves as good pocket passers at the college level. Both have physical attributes which convey, "good enough to get the job done, but not necessarily spectacular." My sense is that NFL GMs might be learning from past failures. While first round QB busts come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors, the most common type of first round QB bust is a guy who has great physical attributes, but who is considered "raw" as a college pocket passer. In other words, Losman. First round QBs most likely to succeed at the NFL level are generally considered "polished" pocket passers--guys like Ponder. Once NFL GMs figure this out--as many already have--it stands to reason that good college pocket passers will start coming off the boards earlier than in the past. "Raw" guys with great physical attributes will tend to fall in the draft. (As Ryan Mallett did.) That said, Nix can perhaps be forgiven for (erroneously) thinking Ponder would be available later in the first.

Agreed. If there's a QB you want, it's always best to err on the side of taking him too early. (As opposed to trying to save on draft picks by letting him fall to you.) There are plenty of teams which need QBs. Generally, at least one of those teams will also be willing to take the QB too early--especially if the QB has established himself as a pocket passer at the college level.

A perfect RB should be part offensive lineman (blitz pickup), part WR (catching passes out of the backfield), and very good at running the ball. Not that Thurman Thomas was perfect, but he was very good in all three areas. Fred Jackson is also an example of this kind of complete football player. I don't put Lynch into that kind of complete football player category. I view him as more of a specialist: with his specialty being to pound the ball between the tackles. He lacks the instinctive elusiveness of Fred Jackson, or the speed of Spiller (or even Jackson's speed, for that matter). There are times when pounding the ball between the tackles is exactly what your football team needs. A guy like Lynch can inflict punishment on the defense, take punishment himself, and physically haul defenders forward for an extra yard or two most other RBs wouldn't have gotten. If Marv had taken a RB like that in the third or fourth round, I wouldn't have complained at all. But to take a player with that skill set at 12th overall is absurd. When the time came to trade Lynch away, nobody offered the Bills a first round pick. Or even a second round pick. The best they could do was a 4th + 6th round pick. A "pound the ball between the tackles" RB just isn't that valuable, even when he's as strong and physical as Lynch.

Thanks for taking the time to write a well thought-out post. > However, if you want to focus on one of the major reasons for the team's lackluster caliber of play it is due to the pedestrian level of qb play. I strongly agree with that. This comes back to a point I made earlier: over the last 40 years, the Bills have used between 0 - 1.5 of their first picks of the draft on a QB. During that same span, they've used 10 of their first picks of the draft on RBs, and another 10 on DBs. (Jim Kelly was taken 16th overall back in '83. But he was not the Bills' first pick of the draft that year: they took a TE 14th overall. That's where the 0.5 comes from, on the theory that 16th overall isn't much different than 14th overall.) Everyone points to Tom Brady as an example of why you don't always need to use a first round pick to get a franchise QB. But it's been over ten years since the Patriots chose Brady. Since then, no franchise QBs have entered the league either as draft picks in rounds 4 - 7, or as UDFAs. The Bills have made several categories of QB-related errors over the years. Failing to take a QB in the first round when he was among the best available players when they picked. Passing up Cutler to take Whitner is a good example of this. Drafting a QB too early based on need, and on physical measurables. The Losman pick. Failure to trade into a draft position where a QB would have become the best player available. I'd like to dwell a little on that last point, because I see it as the single most important reason for the Bills' failure to find a franchise QB other than Kelly. In the 2011 draft the Bills could have traded down a few slots, and could have taken a QB like Locker or Ponder. I realize this would have meant giving up Dareus. In the (highly) unlikely event that no one would have wanted to trade up to 3rd overall, then you take Locker or Ponder there. In his rookie season, Ponder averaged 6.4 yards per attempt; compared to a career average of 6.5 yards per attempt for Sanchez; and 6.8 - 6.7 yards per attempt for Fitz in 2010 and 2011; and 6.1 yards per attempt for Fitz in his first game of 2012. Ponder averaged 10 yards per attempt in the first game of this season. Locker averaged 8.2 yards per attempt last season, albeit in about two games' worth of passing attempts. He averaged 7.2 yards per attempt in the first game of this season. It's too early to say whether Ponder or Locker will become franchise QBs. But their names certainly belong in any discussion about what Nix could have done to address the QB position. Based on the last 10 - 15 years of Bills' front office management, if the Bills had the 5th overall pick, and if the best QBs were expected to be gone by 3rd overall, I would fully expect the Bills to stand pat, and not try to trade up. Or at most, they'd inquire about a trade, then walk away after deciding the price was too high. Then they'd take some non-QB at 5th overall; and the search for The Guy would be postponed another year. At some point the Bills need to identify the guy they want. He needs to be a real quarterback: not the fourth-best quarterback in a draft where everyone else is talking about the big three. Once they've identified him, they should happily pay whatever price is necessary to move up to get him.

> 1) Yes, Ngata should have been the pick Either Ngata or Cutler. > We just signed Tripplet, who was solid player for the Colts and then drafted McCargo. To act like they didn't address the position is short sighted. My concern was not about whether the defensive line had been addressed. My concern was that the Bills passed over superior football players (Cutler and Ngata) to reach for an inferior football player (Whitner), at a position of much less importance than QB. The purpose of your first round picks should be to assemble a core of very good football players. The Bills had a golden opportunity to acquire two core players in the 2006 draft (Cutler with the 8th overall pick, Mangold with the pick used on McCargo). Unfortunately, that opportunity was squandered by a front office which was both myopic and blinkered. Myopic, because they were focused on that particular season, not on the long-term. Blinkered, because they went into that draft convinced they needed to take a DT + SS with their first two picks--and therefore ignored better players at other positions. > 2) Bill has the old school football mentality that is completely outdated now. DBs are more important than ever. I agree that if your team has a good secondary, a lot of things become possible on defense! But as nice as it would be to have a good secondary, you can't use early picks on DBs expected to go first-contract and out! You just can't! Well, technically you can, but if you do you'll lose more games than you win. > Whitner was a reach at #8, but if he did become the player they hoped he would be, it would be more than justified in today's NFL. Not if Cutler also became the QB the Broncos hoped that he'd be. A good QB is much, much more valuable than a good SS. > 3) Cutler has been to the playoffs once in his career. Let's not act like he's some special Qb. Football is a team sport. John Elway was on plenty of 7-9 teams due to the lack of a good supporting cast. While not every QB on a 7-9 team is John Elway, Cutler's stats are worth a closer look. Over the course of his career, Cutler has averaged 7.3 yards per pass attempt. In 2010 it was 7.6 yards per attempt; and in 2011 it was 7.4 yards per attempt. A QB should average at least 7.2 - 7.4 yards per attempt to be considered franchise. As of right now Cutler's stats put him in the "borderline franchise" category. To put Cutler's career average into perspective, Peyton Manning's career average is 7.6 yards per attempt--slightly higher than Cutler's. Mark Sanchez has averaged 6.5 yards per attempt over the course of his career. There's a reason the Bears were willing to trade away two first round picks for Cutler. > I do agree the Bills need to address the position in the draft but I hate the idea of reaching for a > guy. . . . If the Bills have a chance to make a RG3 type deal for a guy like Barkley this offseason, > I'd support it 100%. Same here. I would support trading the entire roster for a player like Andrew Luck. > Football is still a team game. Doesn't that mean Barry Sanders wasn't a good player because his team rarely won? Sounds like the same point I made earlier WRT Cutler and his playoff appearances!

Over the last 40 years, the Bills have used 10 of their first picks of the draft on RBs, another 10 on DBs, only two on OTs, and none on QBs. As for QBs: the Bills did trade away their first round pick for Rob Johnson, so if you want to you can count that. In 1983, the Bills took a TE at 14th overall, and Jim Kelly at 16th overall. Kelly may not have been the Bills' first pick of that draft, but you could say he was (sort of) tied for first. But even if you give the Bills Rob Johnson and half of Kelly, that's still 1.5 first picks of the draft on QBs, compared to 10 each for DBs and RBs. In the post-Polian era, it's been common for Bills' first round DBs to go first-contract-and-out. For a well-run team, this would make them less likely to take a first round DB in the first place. Why use a first round pick on a guy who's only going to give you team five years before he's out the door? For the Bills, the short duration of DBs' stays here made them more likely to take DBs in the first round. First round picks were used to replace other DBs going first-contract-and-out. That same logic was also why the Bills used so many early picks on RBs. RBs typically have short careers, so why not use early picks on them all the time? In part as a result of squandering their early draft picks on DBs and RBs, the Bills have failed to find a successor to Kelly, and have failed to build a nucleus of very good players here for the long run. That doesn't mean that a first round DB or RB is always a mistake. If you are 100% convinced that you'll extend the DB beyond his first contract (assuming he's not a bust), or if you believe the RB will have a long, very good career, and if there are no QBs worthy of the pick, then you could justify taking a DB or RB. Such justification was particularly absent during Marv's tenure as GM. Picking 8th overall, Marv had a choice. Option A was to take a very good QB in the form of Cutler. Option B was to take a very good DL in Ngata. Option C was to reach for an overrated, overhyped SS whom many (including Vic Carucci) felt was not a first round talent. Some have argued that back in 2006, the Bills hadn't give up on Losman. So why take a QB? But part of Marv's job was to look at Losman's film from college and the NFL to determine whether TD's confidence in him was justified. If that confidence was not, then you take the QB. Sure, you give Losman his chance anyway, and maybe he succeeds. If both he and Cutler proved to be successful QBs, the Bills could have traded one of them away. Much like the Broncos traded Cutler away for two first round picks, plus Kyle Orton, plus some other stuff. That's a lot better than the Bills' practice of trading away their former first rounders, in the primes of their careers, for third and fourth round draft picks. Taking Whitner 8th overall cost us a chance to have a long term answer at the QB position for the first time since Kelly hung up his cleats. Instead of fixing the QB position, the Bills obtained a SS who did not offer a significant improvement over George Wilson or Bryan Scott. If the Whitner pick is the single most egregious example of Marv falling into the DBs/RBs trap, the second-most egregious is Marshawn Lynch. Taken 12th overall, Lynch failed to obtain the same rushing averages as did Fred Jackson. With his new team, the Seahawks, Lynch is averaging nearly a full yard per carry less than the Seahawks' other main RB. Lynch was probably not worth much more than the fourth + sixth round picks the Bills obtained for him in a trade. Clearly, the Bills should have used the 12th overall pick on another position instead. As for the argument that they had to take a first round RB after trading away McGahee: no they didn't! Nowhere does it say the Bills have to have a first round pick as their starting RB! Lest some of the above be construed as 20/20 hindsight: there were those on these boards (including Bill from NYC and me) who felt the Whitner pick was a mistake, and announced as much within 24 hours of it having been made. That's not 20/20 hindsight. That's avoiding the boneheadedness of what had been a very inept front office. The Spiller pick is in a different category than the Whitner or Lynch picks. When the Bills' pick came up at 9th overall, there was no college player available who a) was at or near Spiller's talent level, and who b) had been anything more than a one year wonder at the college level. The alternatives to Spiller were much less appealing (based on the data available at the time) than were the alternatives to Whitner. Also, Spiller is a much better football player than Whitner or Lynch. Those are reasons why I was much more open to Spiller being a good pick than I'd been to the idea that Whitner or Lynch may have been good picks. To make a long story short, Bill from NYC's antipathy toward first round RBs and DBs has been richly justified time and time again. Thus far, it appears as though Spiller may be one of the very rare cases in which his instinctive reaction to first round RBs is not justified. When Spiller was picked, I said that for him to justify his draft postion, he needed to do more than just run the ball well. I wrote that he needed to become another Thurman Thomas: a guy who could be a good receiving threat out of the backfield, as well as someone upon whom you could rely for blitz pickup. I'd like to hear people's opinions about how far along they feel Spiller is WRT running the ball, being a good receiver, and being a good blocker/blitz pickup guy.

No, I didn't forget. My earlier statement was that the last time the Bills won a playoff game, Kelly was under center. The Bills lost a playoff game to the Dolphins with Flutie under center, and lost a playoff game to the Titans with Johnson under center. Neither Flutie nor Johnson led the Bills to a postseason win. If Fitz has a good game next week--which, let's face it, is a really big if--it will be in part because the other team's DBs drop what should have been INTs. As long as those would-be INTs don't show up on the stat sheet, a lot of fans will find ways to make excuses for them. Just as they'll also find ways to downplay Fitz's tendency to make inaccurate throws which hang his receivers out to dry. What I want from the Bills' starting QB is a guy who makes consistently accurate throws. Neither we, nor any other team, has gotten that from Fitz. People point to the first five games of last season. But realistically, most of those five games were against weak defenses. Fitz's numbers looked a lot better than the quality of his throws would justify.

I expected Fitz to be somewhere between decent and mediocre. I expected the defense to be strong, especially against the pass. Both the defense and Fitz played like chopped liver. For me, the defense was the bigger disappointment.

Found some information about Barkley. ******** Quarterback coach Steve Clarkson described Barkley as a cross between Joe Montana and Tom Brady.[7] He is projected to be the #1 pick in the 2013 NFL Draft.[8] . . . He finished [the 2011 season] with a 39-7 touchdown-to-interception ratio while completing 69.1% of his passes. . . . ******** He's 6'2", 230.

This. The last time the Bills won a playoff game, Jim Kelly was under center.

I always look forward to reading your thoughts about the game, and today was no exception. Thanks for putting in the effort to write this. Below are a few thoughts of my own: Today's game reinforced my opinion that the Bills need a quarterback. The silver lining in that cloud is that if they continue to play as they did against the Jets, they'll have the chance to draft someone like Barkley. Other than the fumble, Spiller had a very good game today. I've heard it said that fumbling can be corrected by coaching. Let's hope that's true. I agree with you about Kelsay. Any time a player gives it everything he has, I have to give him respect. Whatever the Bills' other problems might be, at least the offensive line looks solid. Speaking of which, I'm happy with the Glenn pick. Of the OTs chosen early in the 2012 draft, Glenn did the most reps. Which is impressive, considering he also has the longest arms out of that group! If you put a quarterback like Barkley behind the Bills' offensive line, give him an explosive RB like Spiller, a healthy Stevie Johnson, a reliable TE like Chandler, and a deep threat like Graham, I think you'd have a good, solid offense. The Bills aren't as far away as they looked--at least not on offense. The defense played completely differently than I'd expected. Was it a fluke--or a harbinger of things to come?

Agreed. I want Bills players in general to be successful, because each success would push the Bills closer to a Lombardi trophy. I want Fitz in particular to be successful--not just because he's the quarterback, but because he's a likeable guy. Even though the Bills won't win a Super Bowl with him under center, this is still my team, he's still the quarterback, and there isn't anyone on the roster, right now, who's better than he is. It's not Fitz's fault that he wasn't born with whatever genes are associated with a high level of throwing accuracy. Fitz's job is to squeeze everything he can out of the talent he has been given. He's done that job well. Fitz should not be blamed for the fact that Nix has not yet found The Guy at quarterback.

Houston Texans, AFC Champions, you say. Misprinted t-shirt or wise prediction?

This. Just to add to what you've written: a few months ago I read an article from a Seattle newspaper. The article pointed out that Lynch was averaging nearly one yard less per carry than the Seahawks' other main RB. (I forget the guy's name.) When I read that, I remembered the fact that Fred Jackson typically had a significantly higher per-carry average than Lynch, when both players were in Bills uniforms. Any time you take a player 12th overall, you expect a lot more than that! :angry: The fact that the Bills couldn't get more than a fourth and sixth rounder out of him when they traded him away also says something about how other GMs regarded him. The list of things Marv did right as GM starts and ends with Kyle Williams. That's it! Nothing else Marv did as GM was the right move. His first round picks were either serious disappointments or outright busts. The same with all his other draft picks, except of course Kyle Williams. His free agent signings were all overpaid, overhyped, and couldn't get the job done. Melvin Fowler? Peerless Price version 2? Derrick Dockery? Larry Triplett? We're not exactly talking about the makings of a Pro Bowl team here. On top of Marv's terrible drafts and his even worse free agent signings, he also hired the wrong head coach.

From an article: ****** [Dwan] Edwards was credited with 109 tackles and 3 1/2 sacks in 27 games, including 24 starts with the Bills. ****** 3.5 sacks, eh? That seems like about the right number.

I'd advise a proctologist.

I think that you and I may have similar perspectives when it comes to Fitz. Where we may disagree is the part about draft position. Sure, Tom Brady was drafted in the sixth round. But that was more than ten years ago. Since then, how many franchise QBs have been drafted in round 3 or later, or have been signed as UDFAs? I am aware of only one: Matt Schaub. Even if you want to talk about franchise QBs from round 2, you have Drew Brees (drafted more than ten years ago), and not much else. If I'm forgetting someone, let me know. Even if you look at round 1 QBs, those who turned out to be franchise have generally been off the board by the time the Bills have picked. I genuinely think that if the Bills are going to get the QB situation squared away, they're probably going to need to use a first round draft pick. And they're probably going to need to trade up.

> In case you have forgotten Chan Gailey picked Trent Edwards over Fitz to start that 2010 season . . . Gailey made a mistake, he corrected it, and he moved on. It took him two regular season games to see his error. Compare that to Dick Jauron, who kept players like Fred Jackson and Stevie Johnson on the bench for years. > Plus, Gailey needs to stop hanging Fitz out to dry by constantly forcing him to throw > when the team gets behind in the score like he did the 2nd half of last year. Agreed. If Fred Jackson is getting 5 - 6 yards a carry, why not run him more? Either the defense adjusts, in which case you've just made Fitz's life easier. Or it doesn't adjust, in which case you can keep taking the 5 - 6 yard runs. > Why on earth would I kiss the ground Gailey walks on? Before Gailey, Fitz was nothing. In his best pre-Gailey season, he averaged 6.3 yards per attempt. With numbers like that, a quarterback should consider himself lucky to be on a roster on opening day. Trent Edwards and JP Losman both have career averages higher than that. Losman is out of the league, and Trent Edwards is hanging on by the skin of his teeth. Under Gailey, Fitz has become a 6.7 - 6.8 yards per attempt kind of guy. A QB needs to have a career average of around 7.2 - 7.4 yards per attempt for me to consider him franchise, and Fitz is a long way from that. But he's also a long way away from his days as a journeyman backup. Gailey designed an offense to take advantage of Fitz's strengths; such as making good pre-snap reads, and fast, sound post-snap decisions. The offense doesn't require Fitz to make many difficult throws, because those aren't exactly his forte. Sure, the offensive scheme could be even better if Gailey ran the ball more often. But as it is, it's a very good fit for Fitz--a much better fit than any offense he's ever run before. > I think most fans just don't really grasp the difference between having only one good receiver in the top 20, and 2 or 3 in the top 30. Thurman#1 pretty much hit this one out of the park, so there's not much I can add to what he's written. But I would like to point out that there are 32 teams in the NFL, so a typical team will have one WR in the top 30. For every team that has more than one in the top 30, there's another which doesn't have any in the top 30. Buffalo has one WR in the top 20, which is about average. > If Fitz had a better supporting cast around him, line, and receivers, then I wouldn't have an argument. Buffalo is not the only team with a flawed WR corps, or a flawed OL. I agree that this past season, the Patriots had a very good supporting cast around Brady. A significantly better supporting cast than the one the Bills put around Fitz. That supporting cast is a big reason why Tom Brady had 8.6 yards per attempt this past season. I'm not asking for 8.6 yards per attempt from Fitz--not unless his supporting cast gets a whole lot better than it is today! But if you were to give the Bills' current supporting cast to a franchise QB, he'd do a lot better than Fitz's 6.7 - 6.8 yards per attempt. This past season, Fitz was ranked 22nd in yards per attempt. Before you say, "Fitz's supporting cast was flawed," let me point out plenty of other teams had flawed supporting casts too. How come so many of those other teams' QBs were able to attain higher yards per attempt stats than Fitz? > That Steeler game in 2010 that went into OT, the one where SJ drops the TD pass. IIRC, that was the game in which Fitz threw three would-be TD passes Johnson's way. One was a drop, like you said. The other two were errant throws--errant enough to be completely uncatchable. Those throws weren't Johnson's fault, or the OL's fault, or Chan Gailey's fault.

> Like the 22 sacks for the Bills O line is the result of Fitz and his ability to get the ball out rather then the all pro players on that line the Bills have. Agreed. Fitz gets rid of the ball quickly, and makes the OL look better than it really is. > Chan Gailey is 10-22 as the Bills HC, and he was fired from his previous job as OC of the Chiefs in 08 where his team went 2-14 (26 in pts, 24 in yards) Gailey served as the Chiefs' offensive coordinator for just one year: 2008. You pointed out the Chiefs' offensive stats weren't very good in 2008, and that's true. But do you know who his starting quarterback was that year? . . . . . . Wait for it . . . Tyler Thigpen! I'll pause for a minute to let that fact sink in. It takes a bit for the Tylerness of it and the Thigpenness of it to really permeate the brain. Put yourself in Gailey's position. You wake up one morning, and realize that Tyler Thigpen is now the best non-injured QB on your roster. So you get creative, and somehow figure out a way to build an offense around Thigpen's, um, strengths. This offense actually manages to do something. It didn't set the world on fire, but it's not exactly as though Thigpen is the second coming of Joe Montana. Or even the second coming of Alex van Pelt. Then Gailey came to Buffalo, where it turned out his best QB was Ryan Fitzpatrick. Prior to Gailey's arrival, Fitzpatrick had never averaged more than 6.3 yards per attempt during a season. To put that number into perspective, Trent Edwards has a career average of 6.5 yards per attempt. Before you blame that difference on the weakness of Fitz's supporting casts, you might want to spend some time thinking about the Bills' flaws on the OL, at WR, and at offensive coordinator back when Edwards was the QB. So prior to Gailey, your boy Fitz had never averaged more than 6.3 yards per attempt during a season. During Gailey's two seasons as head coach, Fitz had the two best years of his career. He averaged 6.8 yards per attempt in 2010, and 6.7 yards per attempt in 2011. Those aren't franchise QB numbers, but they're better by far than anything he's done before. Under Chan Gailey, Fitz went from being a career backup bouncing around the league to a guy who signed a ridiculously big, starter caliber contract. You should be kissing the ground Gailey walks on, not bashing him for having failed to do more with his Tyler Thigpen-led offense in Kansas City.

Good post, and thanks for the link. In 2011, Stevie Johnson had 76 receptions. However many drops he had, they weren't enough to put him on that list of WRs with the worst drop rates in the NFL. Brandon Marshall had about as many receptions as Johnson--81 for Marshall, 76 for Stevie. Marshall's 14 drops were enough to put him on the list of the 20 NFL receivers with the worst drop rate. For Stevie to have avoided that list, he must have had fewer drops than Brandon Marshall. This means Stevie had less than 14 drops.

But he's ranked 22nd in the stat that matters most: yards per attempt. The reason yards per attempt is the one stat which matters most is because it's the hardest to inflate. Want a higher completion percentage? Dump the ball off to your running back. Dumping the ball off will also inflate your QB rating. Want more yards per game? Get an offensive coordinator who calls a lot more passing plays than running plays. Chan Gailey, for example. But it's very difficult to cheese your way into a better yards per attempt stat. Normally, defenses are focused on minimizing your yardage per play. The only real way to increase your yards per attempt stat is to do something defenses are designed to resist. When you succeed in that, it's not cheese. It's good, solid QB play.

I agree with some of what you've written, and disagree with some. I'll focus on the parts with which I disagree, because that's the disagreeable sort of person I am! > I don't believe Fitz's accuracy is as bad as most fans make it out to be. One reason is, if it were that bad he wouldn't be an NFL starter! One of the things which separates top-5 QBs from your average, everyday NFL starters is that the top-5 guys are much more accurate. If you compare the accuracy of an elite QB like Manning or Rodgers to the accuracy of an everyday starter like Cassel or Fitz, you'll see a big difference. > When you have a core of inferior WR's . . . I agree that last season, the Bill were weak at #2 and #3 WR. But they're strong at #1 WR--look at the way Stevie Johnson repeatedly got open against Darrelle Revis! The Bills also had an excellent receiving threat out of the backfield in the form of Fred Jackson. Scott Chandler is a good, solid pass catching TE. > Last season [stevie Johnson had] 76 catches vs 135 targets, thats 59 drops, No it isn't, because not all 59 passes were catchable. I recall reading that Stevie Johnson had about 20 - 25 drops last season (don't remember the exact number). Which means that in the rest of those 59 cases, Fitz didn't throw a catchable pass. Also, there's a difference between a pass that's just barely good enough to be considered "catchable," and a pass that's a ridiculously easy catch. Especially on shorter throws, the mere fact a pass is "catchable" doesn't necessarily mean the throw was particularly good. > [Rodgers] has a much better O line . . . That's news to me. In 2010, Brandon Jackson averaged 3.7 yards per carry for the Packers. Fred Jackson averaged 4.2 yards per carry for the Bills in 2010. In 2011, James Starks averaged 4.3 yards a carry for the Packers, while Fred Jackson averaged a whopping 5.5 yards per carry for the Bills. I'll grant that, of the two Jacksons, Fred is better than Brandon. But I'm still not seeing much evidence that the Packers' OL was good at run blocking. Or at pass protection for that matter: Aaron Rodgers was hit and rushed all year during 2010, and their OL was dominated by the Steelers' DL in that Super Bowl. Aaron Rodgers threw the ball accurately anyway. I'm not saying that QB is the only thing wrong with the Bills' offense. On the other hand, it's not like you can rely on Fitz to throw the ball accurately. Not even when you give him time to throw. And not even when the the throw should be a nice, short, easy throw to make.

Very solid post! The fact the Bills had Losman rated higher than Aaron Rodgers is sad; especially considering it had been part of a larger pattern of failed talent evaluation. Whitner over Cutler, McCargo over Mangold . . .

Ryan Fitzpatrick has the ability to make good pre-snap reads, to get the ball out quickly, and to choose the correct target. Unfortunately, his throwing accuracy leaves a lot to be desired. Maybe you'll respond by pointing out that his pass protection hasn't always been world class, and that even a normally very accurate QB can make the occasional bad throw if he's hurried. The problem with that is that Fitzpatrick is not a "normally very accurate QB"! I agree the Bills need more talent in their receiving corps. Just a few days ago, I mentioned how much better the offense would be had the Bills drafted A.J. Green instead of Marcel Dareus. Whether the improvement in offense would be enough to offset the worsening of the defense is another question. If Fitz was making consistently accurate throws, and if the receivers were dropping those throws, then it's strictly a WR problem. But if the throws are often inaccurate--which they are--then you have a QB + WR problem. Last year the Bills also had an OL problem; especially in the second half of the season. Let me define more clearly what I mean by "QB problem." Fitz is a better starter than many other QBs in the league. He does a lot of things well. But he does not play at or near the level of Manning (either of them), because he doesn't have the accuracy. To be considered a franchise QB, you have to make a near-perfect throw almost every time. Enough plays go wrong already due to pass protection errors, WR errors, penalties, etc. A team can't afford to have large numbers of additional offensive plays go wrong due to bad throws. Not when you're facing a team which has a QB like Aaron Rodgers--a QB who almost never makes a mistake. In Green Bay's recent Super Bowl win, I recall him having made one bad throw all game. One. Everything else he did was just about perfect. It's an unforgiving standard, but that's where the Bills' QB needs to be if we're going to beat elite teams in the postseason. As much as there is to like about Fitz, both as a person and as a player, he isn't at or near that standard. The best possible thing the Bills could do in the 2013 offseason would be to draft a franchise QB. Trade away two or three years' of drafts if you have to, but draft a franchise QB! As Ganesh has pointed out in his well-researched post, most of the good first round QBs have been off the board by the time the Bills have picked. Considering that the Bills have gone over a decade with no playoffs, you'd think they would have had plenty of chances to draft franchise QBs by staying put in the first round. But no. If they're going to get a franchise QB any time soon, odds are they're going to have to trade up. Trading up will not be cheap.