Orton's Arm

Good point. If what the plaintiffs are saying is true, the Jets deserve to be punished. Step 1: the Jets hire masseuses. Step 2: Favre sends pictures to masseuses--pictures to prove he's a "standup guy," so to speak Step 3: The women complain about the pictures. (As one would normally expect from a woman under these circumstances.) Step 4: The Jets fire the women for complaining! To me, step 4 is the worst part of this whole sequence.

Jeff Burris had a ten year career, the first four of which were spent with the Bills. He would have been a good use of a first round pick had he been retained for the entirety of his career. To use a first round pick on a guy and receive only four years in return does not constitute success. Given that Butler let Burris go first-contract-and-out, we have to wonder whether he would have kept Antoine Winfield locked up long term. I don't want to blame Butler for TD's mistakes. On the other hand, there's nothing in Butler's track record which would suggest he would have re-signed Winfield. The fact that so many early picks were used on first-contract-and-out DBs is an important reason why the team TD inherited did not have a strong group of core players. (The better GMs in the league build their teams around a group of very good players who will be with the team for a long time. The first round of the draft is the best place to find such players.) I too have heard that NFL careers last for four years or less. Upon further investigation, the source of that information turned out to be the players' union. To arrive at that figure, a union leader determined that the average player currently in the league has been around for 3.5 years. That calculation implies an average career length of about seven years, not the 3.5 years that the union leader imagines. In any case, the data are skewed because of players who barely make the team, and are released after very short careers. The Bills employed an agency to rate the quality of their players. According to that agency, Fina was in the bottom third of starting LTs. While I acknowledge that his long career means he wasn't a complete failure, I don't think a bottom-third LT is what a GM should hope for or expect when using a first round pick on a LT. Antowain Smith didn't provide the Bills with a significant improvement over lower round picks like Sammy Morris. Nor was Smith particularly sought-after in free agency after his four years with the Bills. As for the 1000 yard season: if you were to take a standard-issue backup RB, and give him the lion's share of the carries, odds are he'll have a 1000 yard season. I'm not saying Butler's tenure was a disaster. He found some competent starters after the first round, including Kurt Schulz, Jay Riemersma, and Sam Rogers. There seemed to be good chemistry between Butler and Wade Phillips; with Butler using lower round picks on players who became solid contributors in Wade's 3-4 defense. Wade had a better defensive scheme than any other coach of the '80s, '90s, or the present, including Dave Wannstedt. Wade's defensive coaching elevated the level of the team, as did holdovers from the Super Bowl era.

Thanks for the good, level-headed responses. I agree with Coach Tuesday and Cage that a franchise QB is critical. I also feel Fitz needs to play at a higher level than we've seen for him to be that franchise QB. I think he's capable of being an average NFL starter. Together with the talent Nix seems to have assembled, that should be good enough to get the Bills into the playoffs, and perhaps even into the divisional round. At some point during the postseason the Bills will likely get eliminated by a team with a franchise QB. But if the Bills start making it to the playoffs, Nix's job should be safe for the next few years. I agree that Butler was a better GM than TD or Marv. But Butler made his share of mistakes too. Butler's first round picks consisted of the following: 1992: John Fina, LT 1993: Thomas Smith, CB 1994: Jeff Burris, CB 1995: Ruben Brown, G 1996: Eric Moulds, WR 1997: Antowain Smith, RB 1998: traded for Rob Johnson, QB 1999: Antoine Winfield, CB 2000: Erik Flowers, DE John Fina was in the bottom third of starting LTs. That fact didn't stop Butler from giving him a lavish extension in 2000. In 2001, TD released Fina. After his release, Fina signed a short-term deal with some other team for near the league minimum. That was part of a larger pattern: Butler was not disciplined about the salary cap. Looking at the above list, only two success stories jump out at me: Eric Moulds and Ruben Brown. As for Brown: when you use a first round pick on an OG, you expect him to be a very good player. Antowain Smith was a wasted draft pick, because you shouldn't use a first round pick on a RB unless a) he runs like Jim Brown, or b) he'll be a much better receiver than your average RB. Nothing about Smith indicated he was either of these things. Antoine Winfield would have been a great success story had he not gone first-contract-and-out. Granted, TD was the one to blame for not re-signing him. On the other hand, Butler had allowed previous first round DBs (Smith and Burris) to leave in free agency, which indicates at least the possibility that he would have similarly allowed Winfield to leave. Without a better feel for whether he would have been retained, I'll hold the Winfield question in abeyance. Butler failed to solve the Bills' problems at QB or on the offensive line. (Flutie was never going to be more than an aging stopgap.) The defensive line was another story: Ted Washington and Pat Williams were big additions, both figuratively and literally. Marcellus Wiley had a few good years for the Bills. TD let him go first-contract-and-out in an effort to clean up the salary cap mess Butler had created. Wiley did little after leaving the Bills. In a nutshell, Butler acquired two good NTs/DTs, but no long-term answers at DE. Not a great legacy for someone who'd spent seven years as the official GM, and one year prior to that as the de facto GM. (I've read that the Fina pick was Butler's call, even though Polian was still officially GM at the time.) On the other hand, some of Butler's acquisitions at LB--Paup and Cowart--would have been long-term answers had it not been for career-altering injuries. Butler found relatively few success stories outside the first round; and most of his first round picks were disappointing. He achieved temporary successes through free agent signings like Flutie, as well as through draft picks and free agent signings who contributed at a high level for a few years before flaming out. Finally, he greatly benefited from the talent he inherited from Polian. However, that talent slowly slipped away due to player aging, and Butler did not replace it at anywhere near the pace at which it was being lost. TD inherited an aging roster of below-average talent, which also happened to be in serious salary cap trouble. Even with a legacy like that, Butler was a significantly better GM than either TD or Marv.

I've seen post-Polian GMs make a number of strategic errors over the years, particularly on draft day. I'll start by listing the errors of previous GMs, and then I'll look at whether Nix avoided the errors of the list. Errors Too many early picks on DBs. The underlying cause of this error was that the Bills' best DBs were allowed to go first-contract-and-out. That policy artificially created needs at DB positions--needs which were then filled with early picks. There were also times when the Bills reached for a DB early in the draft, with Whitner being the most obvious example. Too many RBs. Every 3.5 years the Bills would use a first or second round pick on a RB, while giving up on the previous early pick from 3.5 years ago. Too few QBs and OTs. Over the past 40 years, the Bills have used 50% of their first picks of the draft on RBs and DBs. None have been used on QBs, and only 5% on OTs. Too strong an emphasis on "quick fix" players. Part of the reason for the excess of RBs and DBs, and the absence of OTs and QBs, is that players in the later category typically can't contribute as quickly. Marv's drafts are an excellent example of a "win now" mentality. He once said that if you're building for the future, you're building for someone else's future. Taking players early in the draft based on a single good year, or a good year plus a good combine. Maybin is a good example of this. Taking players based on achievements against lesser competition. Maybin is a good example of this flaw also. In his three years as GM, Nix has used a first and a second round pick on a CB. Given the first point I made, it may seem as though I'm about to criticize him for this. I'm not. It's perfectly acceptable to use an early pick on a DB to fill a legitimate need, which is what Nix has done. He has not created any artificial needs by failing to re-sign any DB worth keeping. If he starts letting good DBs go first-contract-and-out, then and only then do you criticize him. On a similar vein, I won't necessarily criticize Nix for the Spiller pick. If Spiller can be a very effective runner, and if he can be Thurman-like in passing situations, he's worth the pick used on him. He's shown flashes of this in his brief playing time last season. For this pick to be justified, the Bills have to hold onto him for a total of eight or ten years. He cannot be the next Antowain Smith/Travis Henry/Willis McGahee/Marshawn Lynch! Too few QBs. The Bills have a need for a franchise QB. But it's not as though Nix has passed up a widely recognized franchise QB prospect to take a player at some other position instead. Too few OTs. TD once expressed the view that a good OL was more the result of good coaching than player talent. That was around the time he hired McNally to be the OL coach, while letting Jonas Jennings leave in free agency. The Bills' OL of 2005 was one of the worst in team history. After Marv Levy tried and failed to fix the line with overpriced, overhyped free agents, the Bills have been quietly building the line back into what it should be. Nix has continued that process with guys like Hairston and Pears at RT, and now Glenn at LT. If Glenn works out, and if some of the other OLs just drafted reach their potential, the OL will have both good starters and good depth. Too strong an emphasis on "quick fix" players. I don't sense this is a problem with Nix, though I could be wrong. Taking players in the draft based on a single good year, a good year plus a good combine, or on performances against inferior competition. Nix has avoided all these errors, and seems to take a more disciplined approach to the draft. Leading up to the draft, I wrote that Wannstedt is the kind of guy who will take a big, hard-hitting SS, or SS/LB tweener in the fourth or fifth round, ask him to add a few pounds, and turn him into a linebacker. Apparently Wannstedt is the kind of guy who will take a LB in the fourth and the fifth round! Between them, Nix and Wannstedt seem to have gotten much better football players than one would expect from fourth or fifth round picks! What they did there also speaks to Nix's discipline. He filled the need at linebacker while conserving his earlier, more valuable picks for use on players at more important, premium positions. As of right now, Nix seems like a far better GM and a longer-term, more strategic thinker than the Bills have had since Polian.

"Beat Matt Barkley out as a starter before breaking his leg." Sounds encouraging. Corp attended Richmond. Buddy should be familiar with that school, because it's south of the Mason-Dixon line. With questionable depth behind Fitzpatrick, this seems like something the Bills should do!

I think you and I see things in a very similar light. If there's one point of difference, it's that I might be a bit more optimistic about the talent which was just added to the offense. I think that Glenn has the potential to be a Pro Bowl LT, and Graham could be the next Peerless Price (2002 version) or John Taylor. That being said, I agree that Fitz's mechanics or accuracy are very unlikely to improve at this late a stage in his career. I can't dismiss the possibility completely, and for the Bills' sake and Fitz's I hope I'm being overly pessimistic. But right now, at least on paper, a franchise QB is the one thing this team needs to become a Super Bowl contender.

Nine of the last ten Super Bowls were won by teams with franchise QBs. If you don't have a franchise QB, odds are that someone with a franchise QB will eliminate you at some point during the postseason. During the first portion of the season, Fitz looked better than he actually was. 1) He faced a lot of chopped liver defenses. As an example, New England's defense finished the year by allowing the most or second-most passing yards in NFL history. 2) Defenses hadn't yet adapted to Chan's quick strike offense. The Bengals game was a good illustration of what happens when defenses make sensible adaptations. That game occurred before the cracked ribs, and before the offensive line had been depleted by injuries. All this being said, the Bills seem to have done a very good job of improving the talent level around Fitz. If Fitz himself takes a significant step up in his quality of play, this team could go places. But the level of play he displayed prior to his rib injury is not good enough. He needs to do better. Maybe some of that can come through developing better and more consistent mechanics.

As I see it, your options can be summarized thusly 1) Yes 2) Maybe/sort of 3) No In my mind, there's not such thing as maybe/sort of, at least not at the quarterback position. Unless Fitz is a 1), he's a 3). There's nothing in between those two categories--at least not if the goal is to win the Super Bowl. As for Fitz's good performances early in the season: they came against chopped liver defenses. Even then, there were a number of inaccurate throws mixed in. Fortunately for Fitz, the DBs he faced dropped just about everything he threw their way, and allowed the Bills plenty of opportunity to come back from the occasional missed throw. But when defenses got better, and when they adapted to Chan's quick passing game, the offense slowed down. The Bengals game is a good example of that. There's a lot to like about Fitz as a quarterback . . . except for his accuracy. He'll be accurate some of the time, but will follow up a perfectly good throw with a real disappointment. It's not even like his inaccurate throws come on long balls only. If Fitz can fix that problem, the sky is the limit for this team, especially over the long run. Unfortunately, the odds are heavily against him fixing it.

I looked up Wannstedt, and the article confirmed that you are correct in stating he was the Bears' head coach from '93 - '98.

During his tenure as GM, Marv generally used his early picks on "quick impact" positions. RBs, SSs, LBs, etc. Players who could come in and contribute right away, such as Whitner, Lynch, and Poz. At first, that approach seemed good. The team Marv inherited was aging, and had gone 5-11 in its last year under TD. In Marv's first year he turned over most of the roster, made the Bills a lot younger, and improved the team's record to 7-9. But by using early picks on "quick impact" players at "quick impact" positions, he failed to build the foundation the Bills needed for long term success. Compare that to Nix's recent draft. Obviously no one can know what his drafted players will do, so I'll talk about what they're expected to do if all goes according to plan. Gilmore: In time, he's expected to become the long term answer at #1 CB. CB is a premium position at which the Bills had a major long term need. Glenn: Has the potential to develop into a Pro Bowl LT. He has very long arms, and did more reps than any other top LT prospect in the draft (even Kalil). That's another premium position of need which was filled with a potential Pro Bowl player. Graham. A lot of times you'll see an offense with a go-to WR on one side and a pure speed guy on the other. The Super Bowl Bills were like this, with Reed as the go-to guy and Lofton as the deep burner. Moulds and Price were like that too during Bledsoe's one good year. TD felt that much of the offense's subsequent regression was due to the loss of Price. Graham is intended to be the Bills' deep burner: to fill the same role Lofton had, or Peerless Price had back in 2002, or Alvin Harper had with the Cowboys. Nigel Bradham. The Bills needed a starting LB. Bradham is expected to be good in coverage, fast, and a very hard hitter! Ron Brooks. The nickelback is on the field for more than half the snaps. Even assuming Gilmore works out, the Bills lacked a long term solution at nickelback. Brooks is intended to be that solution. If all goes according to plan, the Bills just got four long term starters, including two Pro Bowl starters at premium positions. (I am counting Bradham and Brooks as half a starter each, on the theory that the #3 LB will be on the field about half the time, and the #3 CB will be on the field the other half.) I like this draft a lot more than Marv's drafts, even if it fails to produce the quick impact Marv's drafts created.

There are different gradations of this. In 2006, Marv went into the draft with the thought that his two biggest or most urgent needs were at SS and DT. He resolved to come away with a DT and an SS with his first two picks. That was an extremely blinkered approach, and perhaps not surprisingly resulted in two busts. Marv should have expanded his definition of "need" to include more positions, such as QB and C. That way, when selecting "best player available at a position of need," he could have chosen from more than just first round SSs and DTs. On the other hand, as Kelly the Dog has pointed out, choosing the best player available while ignoring need takes things too far in the opposite direction. Finally, teams should (and generally do) remember the fact that some positions are associated with a greater potential for impact than others. This is why the top five generally consists mostly of QBs, LTs, CBs, WRs, and pass rushers, while the best OG in this draft wasn't taken until the 20s.

For one thing, we have the same defensive coordinator as the mid '90s Cowboys. Wannestedt uses the same defensive scheme he used then, and seeks out the same types of players he sought out then. While we don't have as much defensive talent as the mid '90s Cowboys had, things are definitely headed in that direction! On offense, Glenn seems like the kind of LT the Cowboys would have liked. He's bigger than your average LT, is very strong, and has good, long arms. Stevie Johnson could be seen as a lesser version of Michael Irvin. In which case, T.J. Graham was drafted to be our Alvin Harper! I realize Gailey's overall offensive approach is different than the one the mid '90s Cowboys had, but that doesn't change the fact that Graham was almost certainly chosen to fill the Alvin Harper role.

LT: after Kalil was taken 4th overall, no additional LTs were taken in the first round. (Unless one wants to count Reiff, which is debatable. And even he wasn't taken until the 20s.) More pass rushers: I agree with you that you can't have too many pass rushers. On the other hand, the Bills' starting DL lineup looks very good. You always want more depth on the DL. But with guys like Kellen Heard on the roster, the Bills already have some quality depth on the DL. LB: for a defensive player to justify a top-10 selection, he should be able to do one of two things. 1) Rush the passer, or 2) cover a good pass receiver one-on-one. Wannestedt tends not to blitz his LBs, which rules out 1). One wouldn't normally put a LB in one-on-one coverage against a TE, which rules out 2). Besides which, Kuechley was off the board anyway before the Bills picked. WR: Blackmon was off the board before the Bills picked. Floyd had character concerns, which for Nix made him a non-option in the first round. If you don't have a good #1 CB, you'll be forced to double cover the other team's best WR. A good #1 CB gives you the option of single covering their best WR, thereby freeing up a defender for other uses. That's why Antoine Winfield was so valuable to the defenses of the late '90s Bills. I agree that a strategy of following the herd is typically less optimal than the best available contrarian approach. On the other hand, I don't feel one should adopt a contrarian approach for the sake of being contrarian. One should adopt it due to having formulated a specific picture or vision of that which needs to be achieved. That vision needs to be combined with a disciplined plan about how to achieve that vision. This vision needs to be not just different than the herd's--it needs to be better. If Gilmore is able to single cover the other team's best WR, and keep him under control, and if Gilmore avoids first contract and out, then to me that would justify the 10th overall pick. If you feel differently that's fine. If anything, I welcome you to explain why I'm wrong. If you show me some flaw in my logic, or something I haven't thought of before, or provide data I hadn't previously known, I'm quite open to changing my opinion. If in the past people have found my opinion difficult to change, it's because they attempted to persuade me with unsupported opinions--either their own or those of some perceived authority figure.

You've said this a number of times. But when Winfield became a free agent, he was considered the prize free agent available that year. Both the Jets and Vikings were determined to avoid letting him walk away without signing a contract; and it was considered a coup when the Vikings obtained him over the Jets. The knock on Winfield has traditionally been his lack of interceptions. He's the kind of CB who will deflect the pass, not necessarily intercept it. While he may not have been the world's greatest at intercepting passes, you could leave him on an island against the other team's best WR, and know that that WR would be kept under control.

Because it's easy for fans to be smart with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. He wants to see how we view the pick right now, without access to the benefit of that 20/20 hindsight.

Dilfer's definitely right about the Bills needing a QB! The question is whether anyone left will be a franchise player. If so, they should grab him, and trade up if necessary. But if a second round QB isn't going to become The Guy, then there's no need to use a second round pick on him. This really is an all or nothing proposition, which means you don't use a high draft pick on him unless you think there's a good chance he's The Answer.

If the Bills were going to move up, it should have been for Tannehill--at least assuming they liked him as much as Gil Brandt does--for Kalil, or maybe even for Blackmon. Taking a LB early in the first round is generally an error, at least with Wannestedt's 4-3 defense. Wannestedt is the kind of guy who will take a hard hitting college SS in the fourth or fifth round, and will turn him into a linebacker. Wannestedt tends not to use early picks on LBs, so that those early picks can be used on DLs and DBs instead. That philosophy makes sense: Wannestedt seldom blitzes his LBs, and you wouldn't normally put a LB in one-on-one pass coverage against a pass catching TE. If a defensive player isn't rushing the passer, and isn't covering someone one-on-one, it's very difficult for him to justify a top-10 draft pick. That being said, I think you and I are on a similar page in terms of your larger point. A GM should walk into the draft with a flexible mindset and strategy; and should be open to trading either up or down. Even if a GM ultimately decides to stand pat, it should be because he's seriously considered and rejected his available trade options. Not because his mind was closed to trading in the first place. My sense is that the Bills saw #1 CB as the single biggest missing piece in their defense, and are very comfortable with Gilmore. Considering that so many mocks had him going in the top 8, I think that trading down would have caused them to lose a player they really liked and (correctly) felt they needed. (McGee and Florence are nearing the ends of their careers, and McKelvin is a bust. Going into the draft, the only long-term solution at CB was Aaron Williams.) The defensive line and defensive secondary are deeply interlinked. If the DL can consistently get to the QB in three seconds, and if the secondary is good enough to consistently force him to hold the ball for four seconds, the result is very good pass defense! Everyone talks about how a good DL makes the secondary better, and that's perfectly true. But the reverse is also true: a good secondary makes the DL better. The Bills' pass rush just became more effective because of Gilmore. If Tannehill becomes a franchise QB, a precious opportunity will have been wasted. Nothing comes close in value to a franchise QB! But let's say for the sake of argument that the Bills didn't think Tannehill would become a franchise QB. If that's true, then standing pat and doing what they did may well have been their best option, given the information available at the time. Trading up for Kalil would have been too expensive. Trading down would have made it very difficult to use their first round pick on a player who a) plays a premium position, and b) fills a need. Plenty of DEs and DTs were taken in picks 11 - 20, and DE in particular is a premium position. But it's not a position of need! Floyd went at 13th overall, but maybe the Bills were turned off by his alcohol concerns. After Gilmore was off the boards, only one additional CB was taken in the first round. (Dre Kirkpatrick, 17th overall, to the Chiefs.) I vaguely remember reading about character concerns with Kirkpatrick. Once Kalil was off the board, no offensive linemen were taken until 23rd overall (Reiff) and 24th overall (DeCastro). The Bills only have one major hole on the OL, and that's at LT. DeCastro would not have addressed that, and there are serious questions about whether Reiff would have either. Trading down from the Gilmore pick could have put the Bills in a desert. If they weren't willing to take a player with serious red flags (Floyd and Kirkpatrick), weren't willing to reach for a potential non-LT (Reiff), and wanted to fill a premium position (QB, LT, RDE, CB, WR), and wanted their pick to fill a need (anything other than a S, RB, interior OL, RT, or DL), then they would likely have been very underwhelmed by the available choices from 11 - 20. I would have been willing to trade down into that desert territory anyway, but only for a first round pick in next year's draft. Maybe Nix didn't consider trading down because he recognized and wanted to avoid the above-described desert. But his comment could also be taken to imply a lack of flexible thinking about trading. That lack of flexibility implies serious concerns for the future, even though the Gilmore decision itself looks like it was probably the best or second-best option available (depending on one's opinion of Tannehill).

Eleven pages in and you're the first one to mention the traditional problem with the Bills taking first round DBs. In the past, they'd generally let them go first-contract-and out. If Gilmore plays the way you'd expect a CB drafted 10th overall to play, and if he doesn't go first-contract-and-out, this is a good pick.

Your response is a mix of true statements and incorrect ones. It's true that my screen name used to be Holcombs_Arm. I've even noted as much in my signature, and have done so for years. It's also true that I had posted on the PPP boards. But your characterization of my participation there bears no relationship to reality. One of the worst human beings I've encountered in any venue--DC Tom--disagreed with some of the positions I had taken, and chose to engage me in an online flame war. DC Tom's reputation is well-known, and I make no apology for fighting back against that online bully. 3.5 is an excellent example of Tom pretending to know more than he actually did. (If he was unfamiliar with the concept of expected value he could have admitted as much, or else looked it up. Instead he chose to attack me, without bothering to do either.) As for the substance of this discussion: you have repeatedly stated that 1) you are deeply familiar with how NFL teams grade players, 2) that they do not take position value into account when assigning those grades, and 3) that on draft day they will take a higher graded player over a lower graded player. And yet . . . plenty of QBs, LTs, and RDEs are taken in the top 5, whereas I can't remember an OG ever having been taken that early. The most logical explanation for this is that GMs are taking position value into account, despite your repeated attempts to tell us they are not. You have not provided any alternative explanation for why the top-5 contains far more QBs and LTs than OGs or Cs. Whenever I ask you for clarity on this question, you either ignore it, or answer it in a way which manages to dodge the core issue. (The core issue here being that NFL teams are taking position value into account, as demonstrated by draft history.) In contrast, when someone has challenged me on a legitimate point, I've done my best to respond to the core issue which had been raised. I have not claimed to have more knowledge than I actually do. When I provided estimates for the respective player values of Kuechley, Barron, etc., I acknowledged I haven't watched any college football this past year, and invited comment from those who know more about those players than me. When I first introduced my formula into this discussion, I wrote, "The above formula is far from perfect, and I'm sure someone who's put more time and thought into this than I have could come up with something better." Amazingly, you found it necessary to interpret that formula as a sign of my arrogance! Most people would have seen it for what it was: an intended starting point for an intelligent discussion about position value. Instead of making constructive contributions to that discussion, you have repeatedly told us NFL teams don't take position value into account (despite incontrovertible evidence that they do), and you've told us that teams shouldn't take position value into account. This, despite the self-evident fact that a Pro Bowl QB is far more valuable to his team than a Pro Bowl non-pass-rushing LB. The fact that a Pro Bowl QB or LT is more valuable than a Pro Bowl OG or non-pass-rushing LB is a second core issue you've ignored. While I don't object to people holding different opinions than me, it kind of gets annoying when they support those opinions via personal attacks and over and over and over again repetitions that they are right, while dodging core issues.

This. As others have pointed out, moving Levitre out to LT needlessly creates a hole at OG, without acceptably filling the hole at LT. I'm also strongly opposed to the idea of taking an OG 10th overall. Finally, I've read that while DeCastro is good, he's not special enough to justify the hype he's been getting. I'd like to see the Bills address LT in the first round of the draft. Their two best options may be to trade up for Kalil, or to trade back into the lower part of the first. If neither of those trades are available--or are available, but not at an acceptable price--maybe there will be a LT worth taking in the second round. I don't think the second-best LT in this draft is worthy of going 10th overall.

Nine out of the last ten Super Bowls were won by teams that had franchise QBs. The New York Giants are a good example of what it takes to win a Super Bowl. They have a franchise QB in the form of Eli Manning. (The last few years, Eli's numbers have been at least as good as his brother's career averages.) Not only do the Giants have a franchise QB, they also have a complete team to go with him. The Giants' combination of a franchise QB and a complete team gives them a significant advantage when playing against a team which lacks one or the other of those things. In the postseason, teams without franchise QBs tend to get eliminated by teams with them. Unfortunately, Fitz is not a franchise QB. The Bills' window of opportunity to win the Super Bowl will not open until they acquire a franchise QB.

This is the second time you've lied about giving me the last word. Given that you've (provably) lied twice about that, I'm beginning to put less faith in your other assertions. In addition, your implication that you've figured out who I am in "many forums under many names" sounds a lot like you're just making stuff up. Enlighten me: what are the names of these "many forums," and what "many names" do I use? As for the substance of your post, you continue to repeat yourself over and over, in a way which dodges the core issue. I will ask my question once again, as clearly as possible, in the forlorn hope that you will (gasp!) actually say something new. The question. Player X is a quarterback. If Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady are a 10, and if Matt Ryan and Jay Cutler are an 8, this quarterback is a 9. Player Y is an offensive guard. He is expected to be the best offensive guard of the decade. If the best OGs in NFL history are a 10, this guy is a 10 as well. If you were a GM, would you take the quarterback or the offensive guard? Which player do you think a typical NFL GM would take?

As I suspected, you refused to retract or clarify statements which were clearly erroneous, and which dumbed down the level of the discussion. The key issue, as far as your main point is concerned, is whether an NFL team would rather draft a player projected to be the sixth-best QB in the league (Luck) or the best OG in the league (hypothetically DeCastro). You're trying to weasel out of that question by claiming that DeCastro has a lower player rating than Luck. I assume this means DeCastro isn't projected to be the best OG in the league. And you're ignoring the hypothetical question what if he was projected to be the best OG in the NFL? The reason you're ignoring it is because you don't want to admit that your statements about how position value is ignored are simply wrong. But neither do you want to look like an idiot by claiming that a typical NFL team would take an elite OG over Luck. (Which is exactly how you would look if you made that claim.) You've accused me of dishonesty, which as best I can tell means you're being dishonest by refusing to retract statements you know are wrong. You're dodging the heart of the issue, and you're using inflammatory accusations to stop people from noticing how absurd your rhetoric becomes when taken to its logical conclusion. As far as the decades of experience you supposedly have: I suggest you stop bragging about that alleged experience until you've shown yourself capable of having a civil, rational discussion about football. Nothing you've written in this thread even remotely suggests that possibility. This is the second time you've claimed you'd let me have the last word. Let's see if you'll do a better job of doing what you said you'd do than you had the first time around. Finally, I'll release you from your promise to let me have the last word if you want to address the question I've raised in my opening paragraph, if you would like to clarify your earlier statements about player value, or if you would otherwise like to (finally!) contribute something of value to the conversation. But if your plan is to write yet another inflammatory post, with further attacks against me, I will consider you to have broken your commitment to let me have the last word. Edit: I wanted to write a separate post to Cynical's question. Unfortunately, due to an annoying feature-bug, the discussion board software insists on lumping my response to him in with this post. Briefly, by "top-6 QB," I meant, "one of the six best QBs in the NFL, but not one of the three best QBs in the NFL."

If K-9 does not believe that position value should be taken into account when comparing DeCastro to Luck, he needs to be much clearer on that point. Suppose a team believes that DeCastro will become the best OG in the game, and that Luck will be a top-6 QB, but not a top-3 QB. What should a team do under those circumstances? Let's look at what K-9 has written about this point. K-9 > But you won't see a tiered ranking system because player grades are assigned according to ABILITY, regardless of position. Edward's Arm > As I stated earlier, a top-15 LT is worth more than a Pro Bowl guard. K-9 > What part about that hypothetical G being a hypothetically better FOOTBALL player than that hypothetical LT don't you understand? K-9 > I've tried to explain that player ratings are not based on position. . . . Nobody > gets bonus points because they play a more premium position. If one accepts K-9's words at face value, the logical conclusion would be to take DeCastro ahead of Luck, if it was felt DeCastro would be the better football player. I have no idea what might have been going through K-9's head when he wrote his posts. I based my responses on what he actually wrote, not on what he may or may not have intended to write. What he's actually written is that player grades alone should be the basis for deciding who to draft; and that "nobody gets bonus points because they play a more premium position." With these premises as his basis, the conclusion that one should take DeCastro over Luck is inescapable--at least assuming that Luck will be a top-6 QB and DeCastro the best OG in the league. If K-9 does in fact feel a top-6 QB should be taken ahead of a league-best OG, then he needs to retract the above-quoted statements, and he needs to clarify the fact that he is taking position value into account. He also needs to state that NFL GMs also take position value into account, unless he would have us believe that most GMs would take a league-best OG over Andrew Luck. Unless or until he makes these clarifications and corrections, I will continue to base my posts on what he's actually written, not on whatever on earth he may have meant to write.

Yards per season is not the correct measurement, because it's so dependent on a QB's number of pass attempts. A much better measure is yards per pass attempt. Jim Kelly averaged 7.4 yards per pass attempt over the course of his career. During Fitz's best season, he averaged 6.8 yards per pass attempt. Trent Edwards' career average is 6.5 yards per pass attempt. Fitzpatrick is better than Edwards, but not nearly as good as Kelly.