Orton's Arm

I strongly disagree with the bolded sentence. The players' percentage of revenues has expanded, and has grown to about 60%. The definition of "revenues" has also expanded to include a large portion of unshared revenues. Even if the owners had zero expenses--even if coaches, front office personnel, security staff, administrative people, grounds crews, and so on all worked for free, that would still represent a very good deal for the players. A much better deal than almost any of them could possibly hope to attain in any other available employment opportunity. Conversely, if someone had a billion dollars to invest, there are any number of investments which would produce a much better rate of return than would buying an NFL franchise.

Thank you for adding a dose of sanity to this thread. A few years ago, there were plenty of people who made sarcastic comments about Steve Johnson and his potential. Comments like, "let's start preparing a place in the Hall of Fame for a player who's never played a down of regular season football," or things to that effect. Very, very few of Steve Johnson's supporters had confused him with an established commodity. But his naysayers seemed to see little difference between "Steve Johnson looks like he has the potential to become a good player," and "Steve Johnson has already proven he belongs in the Hall of Fame." It turns out that Stevie Johnson's naysayers didn't know any more than the rest of us did. (Even though they acted that way.) Now the Jasper naysayers are acting exactly like the Stevie Johnson naysayers did. Anyone reading through this thread would think that most Jasper supporters had already begun discussing what his Hall of Fame bust would look like; when in fact the overwhelming majority of his supporters have expressed themselves as you have above. It would be a whole lot easier to have an intelligent discussion with the Jasper naysayers if they started off with, "here is what I want to see from a 3-4 NT, and here is how Jasper fails to live up to that." Their sarcastic remarks about Jasper come across as if they know Jasper won't amount to anything. In fact, they know no such thing! If both sides in the Jasper discussion can admit that they don't know if he'll be good (as you have, above), and if both sides can refrain from sarcastic exaggerations of the other's positions, an intelligent, reasonable discussion would be a lot more likely.

You (and Warner) are exactly right. The players have been receiving a progressively higher share of the overall pie. That's not good for the league, and is especially not good for smaller market, lower revenue teams like the Bills! From the article: "[Warner] recognizes that the players got a really good financial deal in the last agreement and says the players need to realize that 'the salaries went crazy.' " I fully agree with Warner's idea that the players should accept a lower percentage of revenues in exchange for concessions in other areas (potentially including more roster spots, a higher minimum salary level, better benefits for retired players, etc.) But you won't hear that from Tom Brady or Drew Brees. A high salary cap benefits players like that the most, which means they'd also be hurt the most by a salary cap reduction. Doing more for the lowest paid players in the league (more roster spots, higher minimum salaries, etc.) would also hurt Brees and Brady, because every extra dollar earned by a backup is one less dollar available for Brees or Brady.

You make a good point. If a head coach tells the general manager, "these are the kinds of players I need to succeed," it's natural for the GM to listen. In this case, Gailey apparently said something along the lines of, "I need a waterbug to make my offense work." If Spiller fails to live up to his lofty draft position, I'd assign perhaps 1/3 of the blame for that to Gailey (assuming he campaigned for Spiller as his waterbug), and 2/3 of the blame to Nix. I fully agree that RB was not a need. Further, RBs tend to have short careers, so you hate to start off a rebuilding effort by drafting one.

I disagree with the idea that a losing record precludes a coach from being in the top-15. Barry Switzer owns a Super Bowl ring, but that doesn't mean he was a better head coach for the Cowboys than Belichick was for the Cleveland Browns. The right questions to ask when evaluating a head coach are things like, "Did he get the most possible out of the players he had?" "Did he tend to get outsmarted on game day, or was he the one outsmarting the other guy?" "How good are the assistants he hired?" Also, your post seems to blur the distinction between head coach and general manager; with you holding Gailey responsible not just for his own decisions, but Nix's as well. I'll grant that Gailey almost certainly campaigned heavily for a "waterbug" running back, and almost certainly told Nix that Spiller fit that definition to a tee. I'll also grant that Spiller didn't play as well as you'd expect from a rookie running back picked ninth overall. For the sake of argument, let's suppose Spiller's career won't be any better than you'd expect from a RB picked in the second or third round. If that turns out to be the case, the ultimate responsibility for that is on Nix, not Gailey. Sometimes a head coach will get more excited about a college player than is justified. When that happens, it's the GM's job to be a cooler head, and to provide a more accurate assessment of the player's potential. That's the whole point in having a GM in the first place!

I wouldn't go so far as to call myself part of the "build the OL at all costs" contingent, though I would like to see a strong emphasis on the lines in the future. However, I will say this: Suppose Team A's OL allows one pressure all year, and that one pressure turns into a sack. Team B's OL allows pressure every single time the QB drops back to throw, and 25% of the time that pressure leads to a sack. If the methodology in the article is used to rank OL play, Team A's line would look four times worse than Team B's line. With Team A, 100% of pressures turn into sacks; whereas only 25% of pressures turn into sacks for Team B's line. It's interesting to know which teams were best at keeping pressure from turning into sacks, but that datum is absolutely useless for evaluating OL play. Useless!

Granted. But he did lose Aaron Schobel, who had been the defense's best pass rusher the previous several years. Some of the other players in his defensive front-7 looked like age was catching up to them. I suspect the defense would have taken a significant step for the worse even if they'd retained Jauron's old scheme. That being said, they probably did err by moving to the new 3-4 scheme too soon, before they had the right personnel for it. It's possible they were thinking not just of the 2010 season, but future seasons. The thought may have been that the only way to really see which guys are a good fit for the 3-4 is to plug them in, and see which guys sink and which guys swim. Apparently more guys sank than they expected, forcing a temporary reversion to the 4-3. On offense, Fitz played considerably better than he had at any point in his past. Not well enough to be the answer at QB, but probably a step above what we've been used to seeing from the position. A lot of the credit for that goes to Fitz himself, but a lot also has to go to Gailey for the offensive scheme and coaching he provided. Overall, Gailey coached like a guy who was still in the midst of learning about his roster's strengths and limitations well into the season. I give him credit for (eventually) coming up with ways to put his players in positions to succeed. My concern is that he may have taken longer than he should have to have figured out what his players could and couldn't do. The previous regime had initially given no opportunities at all for players like Fred Jackson and Stevie Johnson to show what they could do, except in the preseason. I hope that Gailey won't similarly get in players' way through an inability to recognize talent and potential. To his credit, Gailey does seem faster about recognizing and correcting his mistakes than the previous regime had been.

You've made a good point. And I agree that Bruce Smith was a better pure pass rusher than Paup. However . . . Bruce Smith is not the only RDE in the history of the league to consistently command double teams. Even on teams with very good RDEs, it's very, very rare to see an OLB put up over 17 sacks in a season! I'm not disagreeing with your point, just pointing out that Paup's season was very remarkable. You may recall the playoff game in which the Bills faced the Steelers. Bruce missed that game because he'd been hospitalized with an illness. The Steelers responded by consistently running plays to the opposite side of the field from wherever Paup happened to be. That cut down on his opportunities to make plays and put up good numbers. But it also showed the Steelers feared him.

Nicely done poll. Going into this poll, I thought to myself, Fitz probably belongs somewhere around #16 or so. After I saw the names of the other QBs, I began thinking that maybe 18 - 20 was about right.

First, I'll address your statement that, "The presence of a union gives the league what congress has not, a blanket exemption from the laws of the United States." Those laws are being applied as though the NFL consisted of 32 separate corporations--corporations which are supposed to be competing against each other. If (for example) the 32 largest airlines got together to negotiate a "salary cap," it would be considered an anti-trust violation. The reason NFL teams are allowed to do this is because a salary cap was part of the agreement with the players union. The problem here is obvious: courts interpret each NFL team as a separate, competing business entity when they should be viewing the NFL as one big entity. The solution is equally obvious: make whichever changes are necessary to persuade the courts that the NFL is, in fact, one corporation (not 32 smaller corporations). That would eliminate the owners' need for a players union, and eliminate the need for Demaurice Smith. You wrote, "A team with a few stars and everyone else getting minimum wage would lose to more balanced teams because no matter how good Peyton Manning or Tom Brady is, they don't block, they don't kick field goals, they don't cover WR's etc, etc." Let me be clear about this: my concern is not that teams like the Colts and the Patriots will try to win games with an elite QB + scrubs at every other position. They or someone else will offer a good salary for starting-caliber offensive linemen and defensive linemen and starting-caliber players at other positions. The problem is that a team only has 22 starters, but 53 men on its roster. What happens to the salaries of those 31 backups once the NFL minimum wage is eliminated? Sure, some of those backups are important role players or are pivotal on special teams. Nickel backs, #3 WRs, rotational defensive linemen, kickers, punters, guys like that. Those guys would probably do okay. But a lot of those other 31 guys are players who don't typically see the field, except on special teams. Those are the guys likely to get hammered by the elimination of the NFL's minimum wage, with the money saved going to players like Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning may indeed be sacrificing a portion of his earning power under the present system, as compared to how much he could earn if the Colts' backups were paid 1/10th the current NFL minimum wage. But IIRC, he currently makes somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million a year, and I feel no burning desire to see that increased to $15 million a year at other players' expense. "The ultimate issue really may be just that, owners who don't want to share with owners who aren't making the same $ for whatever reason, be it small markets or whatever." It is true this is a serious issue. My sense is that owners are more selfish towards other owners now than they'd been back in the day of Wellington Mara. That's one of several reasons why unshared revenues have increased faster than shared revenues. The other problem is that players have been getting a progressively larger share of the pie. In addition to increasing the players' percentage of revenues, the players union has also arranged things so that if Jerry Jones or some other owner gets his hands on some extra unshared revenue, a very significant portion is (for salary cap purposes) treated as though it had been distributed among all 32 NFL teams. That provision makes it much more financially painful for a team like the Bills to spend up to the salary cap than had been the case back in the late '90s. The salary cap makes up a substantially greater percentage of shared revenues today than had been the case ten years ago. That's something which has to change, and I commend the owners for working to solve that problem.

I disagree. Cornelius Bennett was a five time Pro Bowl selection, was once selected as the AFC defensive player of the year, and has been mentioned as the third-best pass rusher in the NFL. (The third-best of his time, not all-time.) His best season, sack-wise, was 1988, when he had 9.5 sacks. Like Bryce Paup, he also had the benefit of playing with Bruce Smith. 9.5 sacks is a very respectable achievement for an OLB, Bruce Smith or no. But Bryce Paup's 17.5 sacks is just a little bit better.

The problem to which BillsFaninFL was referring is that over the last decade or so, owners have generally focused on growing their unshared revenues a lot more than their shared revenues. Take a guy like Jerry Jones for example. If someone like that gets a new stadium, the things about that stadium which will make him drool will be the luxury suites, PSLs, corporate sponsorship deals, and other sources of unshared revenue. New stadiums typically have many more luxury suites and other things associated with unshared revenue than do older stadiums. While there are limits to the amount of unshared revenue any team can bring in--especially in a down economy--the concern is that they are much higher limits for teams like the Cowboys or the Redskins than they are for teams like the Bills.

Bryce Paup is one of the first guys who comes to my mind. As an OLB in Green Bay's 4-3 scheme, he put up solid numbers. But when he came to Buffalo and was plugged in as an OLB in its 3-4 scheme, it was a perfect fit! He had an insane 17.5 sacks that first year with the Bills. A multi-dimensional player, the guy was good against the run, good in pass coverage, created turnovers here and there, you name it! He was voted defensive MVP that year. Not just for the Bills, but for the entire NFL. To put those 17.5 sacks into perspective, look at Lawrence Taylor's stats. Only once in his 13 year career did he meet or exceed 17.5 sacks. Had Bryce Paup continued to play at the level he had in 1995, his name would be mentioned along with Lawrence Taylor's as being among the best OLBs ever to have played the game. Instead, Paup got injured in 1996 (his second year with the Bills) and was never the same player again. Post-injury, he became more one-dimensional, more limited: a shadow of his former self. Even that shadow was still respectable, but think of what might have been!

You are 100% correct. I think that if you were to take some of the more intelligent and knowledgeable people from this board, give them some time with draft guides, and have them go to work as GMs, they'd make considerably better decisions than we've usually seen from the post-Polian Bills' front office. As a specific example of this, I recall you arguing, strongly, in favor of the Bills taking Mangold. Instead they used that pick on McCargo. Mangold is now the best center in the league, while McCargo . . . Numerous examples of this sort of thing can be seen over the last 15+ years!

Just to add to what you've written: this also has a lot in common with what in game theory is known as the game of chicken. Imagine two teenage guys on bicycles--guys who have challenged each other to a game of chicken. The two teens ride toward each other at a high speed. If neither player swerves, they will collide and end up with serious injuries. This is considered the worst possible outcome from both teens' perspective. On the other hand, they could both choose to swerve at the last second. This is a fairly neutral outcome: neither teen gains nor loses much social status, and they both walk away unhurt. However, there's also the chance that one teen will swerve while the other doesn't. The one that swerves loses social status and gets called a chicken; the one who didn't swerve gains social status. Being called a chicken isn't as bad as ending up with broken bones, but it's still bad. Suppose you're playing a game of chicken. You know that your opponent has swerved the last ten times he's played. Your inclination would probably be to not swerve. That's the smart choice if you know he's going to swerve. Back in 2006, the owners and the players played a game of chicken. The owners swerved and the players didn't. It's been a while since either a) the owners have chosen to stand their ground, or b) the players have chosen to swerve. At this point, the owners need to establish that they're not always going to be the one that swerves. They need to establish this even if it means a bicycle collision and resulting broken bones. What they establish here affects not just this upcoming collective bargaining agreement, but the collective bargaining agreements which will follow. The alternative is to always allow the players to take a little more and a little more of collective revenues, while the owners' share gets progressively smaller.

Perhaps someday you'll also be able to imagine what it would be like to make a constructive contribution to a discussion, instead of sarcastic remarks denigrating the posts of others. The previous remark isn't about you as a poster in general. It is, however, a statement that the quoted post was out of line, added nothing, and detracted from what had been an intelligent and thought-provoking discussion between Jauronimo, Bill, and myself. If you don't have something useful or beneficial to contribute to a thread, please have the courtesy to remain silent.

I strongly agree with this. NFL owners should definitely rid themselves of a need for a players union--as you've described--especially because it's become increasingly clear that nothing constructive is going to get done as long as DeMaurice Smith is in a position to block progress. I also strongly agree with Ramius's post about how a pure free market system would benefit a few players--such as Manning and Brady--while significantly harming many others. Think of all the guys on NFL rosters who are currently receiving the NFL minimum wage. A lot of those players are backups/special teams players, and are often considered expendable and interchangeable. Eliminate the NFL's minimum wage, and what do you think happens to the salaries of the worst 20 - 30 players on any given team? Further, how many more mini camps, training camps, etc. do you think NFL teams are likely to require if a pure free market system is implemented? If the NFL turns itself into one big corporation--as you've described--then there'd be no harm in DeMaurice Smith picking up his marbles and going home. On the contrary. The NFL, as a single entity, could implement a salary cap, a draft, minimum salaries for players, restrictions on the number of training camps, etc. If it did these things fairly and equitably, the players would (hopefully) choose not to re-unionize. Of course, the threat of re-unionization would always exist if the owners got too greedy.

I know I'm not Bill from NYC, but I feel the urge to take the step described in the bolded section. Suppose I was made GM of an expansion team, and had five years' worth of drafts to build it into a contender. Here's how I'd use those five years worth of picks. Round 1 picks QB LT RDE (3-4) OLB (3-4/pass rusher) CB Round 2 picks RT C WR NT CB Round 3 picks WR TE RB: pass receiver, blitz pickup, draw plays, standard-issue running plays LDE (3-4) OLB Rounds 4 - 7/UDFAs OG OG #3 WR ILB ILB SS FS The above plan isn't set in stone. Every GM should be able to respond flexibly to the players actually available in the draft, rather than coming in with a rigid plan based on what he wishes was available, or feels should be available. On offense, my objective would be to have an elite QB playing behind a solid OL. That's why I'm planning to use a first round pick on a QB, another on a LT, and second rounders on my RT and C. (But if a Nick Mangold was available to me later in the first, I'd gladly take him.) The QB also needs targets, which is why I have the team drafting its #1 WR in the second round, and another WR and a TE in the third. The third round RB is envisioned to be a poor man's Thurman Thomas: a guy who can run the ball, catch passes, do well on draw plays, and be solid at blitz pickup. I'd employ a 3-4 defense. The four most important positions there would be NT, RDE, pass rushing OLB, and #1 CB. The NT should be able to be productive while being double-teamed: a Pat Williams or Ted Washington. The RDE should also provide a pass rush + run stopping while being double teamed--perhaps a somewhat inferior version of Bruce Smith. The OLB should be like Bryce Paup: an excellent pass rusher who's also solid at stopping the run and at pass coverage. The #1 CB should be like Antoine Winfield: a guy you can leave on an island against the other team's #1 WR. The only difference is that unlike Winfield, my #1 CB would not go first-contract-and-out!! Of those four key defenders, I'd take all but the NT in the first round. The theory here is that it's easier to find a good NT in the second round than it is to find a good RDE, pass rushing OLB, or CB. As I indicated in my earlier post, I'd also try to find late round/UDFA steals at just about every position on the field. If (for example) I managed to find a Steve Johnson of a 7th round pick, that would free up an early pick I'd planned to use on a WR.

You've expressed yourself well. I agree that if you can get away with building a very good OL without using high picks, it's well worth doing. As you've pointed out, there have been a number of times when teams have done that successfully. But there are a number of potential flaws with confining oneself to a mid- to late-round OL strategy. The Bills have been a case study in such flaws. 1) I would argue that a number of positions the Bills have addressed instead of the OL have not been "money positions," as you describe them. I'll grant that your #1 CB is a money position. But the same is not (typically) true of your safeties, and is only partially true of your #2 CB. I'd also argue that a RB is not a money position, unless you're getting a Thurman Thomas or a Marshall Faulk. 2) OL positions only seem like non-money positions when your mid- and late-round OL get the job done. But ever since the mid- '90s, the Bills' OL has generally been a shambles. Several years ago, Dr. Z wrote an article about how several teams' failure at OL had led to a total team lack of success. A lack of pass protection will generally kill your passing game, while the lack of run blocking shuts down your running game. That kills your offense, which puts your defense on the field more than it should be, thus wearing it down as well. The Bills were one of several teams Dr. Z listed as having experienced exactly this kind of OL-based weakness and collapse. 3) The early draft picks the Bills have freed up by neglecting the OL have typically been squandered. For example, I like Antoine Winfield as a player, and think he would have more than justified the late first round pick the Bills used on him. But that justification would have required he spend his career in Buffalo, instead of spending most of it with the Vikings. As things stand, the pick on him was largely wasted, just as any first round pick should be considered mostly wasted if used on a player who goes first-contract-and-out. The Bills have experienced a number of first-contract-and-out DBs over the years. 4) The first round picks used on this constant, useless quest to upgrade the RB position have also been wasted. Travis Henry didn't provide enough of an upgrade over Antowain Smith to justify the second round pick. Willis McGahee didn't provide enough of an upgrade over Travis Henry to justify the first round pick. And so on. If the Bills had used more early picks on offensive linemen over the years, they would have been forced to make do with what they had at RB and DB. That would have meant re-signing Greer, avoiding selections like McGahee and Lynch, etc. Instead, the Bills acted like draft day rich men who could afford to throw away anything not quite perfect when they were drafting RBs and DBs. And they've acted like draft day paupers when it comes time to draft OL. 5) It is not necessarily the case that it's easier to build an OL with free agents than it is to improve yourself at some other position. The availability of free agent OL is, presumably, five times greater than that for other positions. But the need for free agent OL is five times greater as well. Those two things cancel. For every good free agent OL, there will probably be five or six teams looking to upgrade their offensive lines. Nearly every team in the league has at least one hole on its offensive line, thereby increasing the demand for top tier free agent OL. I literally can't remember the last time the Bills added an offensive lineman in free agency and had him turn into a long-term solid starter. (I'm not talking about UDFAs here--those are a separate category--but rather guys who'd played significantly for other teams before coming to Buffalo.) 6) It's worth noting that when Polian's Colts lost the Super Bowl to the Saints, he attributed that failure to his team's OL. He announced his intention to devote significant draft day resources to shoring up the OL; an intention which was later implemented by his son Chris. I'd also argue that the OL has been an ongoing issue for the Colts. The Colts have won plenty of regular season games over the course of Manning's career. But come the postseason, the Colts would be faced with teams with better defenses--and specifically with better pass rushes. A Colts OL which was good enough to cope with normal defenses has often proved unequal to dealing with the best pass rushes of the league. As a consequence, the Colts offense would often perform significantly worse in the postseason than it had during the regular season. The moral of the story is that a strategy of building the OL with mid- to late-round picks doesn't always work, even when it's being executed by someone as capable as Polian. I like the idea of getting by with late round picks and UDFAs where possible. Steve Johnson, Fred Jackson, and Jabari Greer are all good examples of this. When you find a player like that, you should keep him locked up for the entirety of his career. You should attempt to fill nearly every position with mid- to-late round picks if you can find players of Johnson/Jackson/Greer caliber. The one exception is at quarterback, where having an elite player is much more important than any savings you may incur on draft picks. For every other position on the team--not just OL--you should adopt a "fill with a later round pick if possible" strategy. There will be times when that strategy fails--times when those mid- to late-round picks do not yield a good RT, or OLB, or RDE, or whatever. Whenever something like that happens, you shouldn't be afraid to use an early pick on a good- to -elite player to fix the problem. Especially if the position is of critical importance, such as OT!

At least initially, the Bills appear to have done a very solid job with the 2011 draft. I'm certainly not going to complain about it, at any rate. But it's also worth being aware of a larger pattern. During the last 50 years, the Bills have used their first pick in the draft on a RB ten different times. (Including nine first rounders.) They've used their first pick of the draft on a DB ten different times (all ten of which were first rounders). Not once have they used their first pick of the draft on a QB. Only twice have they used their first pick of the draft on an OT. It's been ten years since the Bills last used a first, second, or third round pick on an OT. (And we all know how Mike Williams worked out.) After years or decades of watching the Bills neglect the OL on draft day, and after years or decades of watching the Bills field mostly inept OLs (with the Polian Bills being a rare exception), there are those here who need to see concrete proof that the Bills' front office is committed to building the OL. This is not a complaint about the Bills' 2011 draft. It is a statement that, if the Bills' OL fails to significantly improve in 2011, I at least would hope to see significant draft day resources devoted to it come 2012. If Bell is not the answer at LT, then only a franchise QB should be assigned a higher draft day priority than finding someone who is.

Peyton Manning averaged 6.9 yards per attempt in 2010, well below his career average of 7.6. You'll recall that any QB with an average of 7.4 or better is (according to my rule of thumb) automatically considered a franchise QB, regardless of other considerations. Manning's drop-off in YPA was due largely to problems at WR, but may also mean that he's getting older. In 2009 he averaged a very impressive 7.9 yards per attempt, and in 2008 it was 7.2. Tom Brady's career average is 7.4 yards per attempt, correctly indicating he's a franchise QB. These past two seasons he's averaged 7.8 and 7.9 yards per attempt, indicating his play has become even more effective than usual. Ben Roethlisberger's career average is a jaw-dropping 8.0 yards per attempt, which puts him in definite franchise QB territory. You mentioned his 2008 season. Then, he averaged "only" 7.0 yards per attempt, which (from a YPA standpoint) was by far his statistically worst season. His next-worst was in 2006 (out of seven seasons total), when he averaged 7.5 yards per attempt. Drew Brees has averaged 7.3 yards per attempt over the course of his career, which statistically puts him in franchise QB territory. His average would be higher if he'd done better his first few years. It's worth noting that after spending nearly all his rookie year on the bench, he averaged just 6.2 yards per attempt his second year, and 5.9 yards per attempt his third year. Those numbers help explain why his overall career average is not higher, and why the Chargers decided to replace him with Rivers. Then in 2004 he averaged a very impressive 7.9 yards per attempt, followed by 7.2 yards per attempt in 2005. Those numbers are why he was able to keep Rivers on the bench during Brees' time in San Diego. Kurt Warner averaged 7.9 yards per attempt over the course of his career, correctly indicating he was one of the best QBs ever to play the game. You mentioned that Brett Favre had the third-highest TD percentage in 2009. You neglected to mention that he also averaged 7.9 yards per pass attempt that year, which was a very impressive feat! In my earlier post, I asked anyone who wished to dispute the validity of YPA as a stat to demonstrate either a) a franchise QB with a low YPA career average, or b) a mediocre QB with a very high YPA career average. You have done neither. Instead, you've cherry picked individual seasons from a few franchise QBs, while ignoring the fact that even a franchise QB will sometimes perform below his usual standards, and will have an off year. Brett Favre with the Jets, Kurt Warner during his last years in St. Louis, etc. When a franchise QB has an off year, his YPA will be unimpressive for that year. Favre's YPA with the Jets was only 6.7, for example.

In the past, Lee Evans expressed faith in JP Losman. I also remember having seen at least one player say that having Trent Edwards on the field gave him a lot of confidence that the Bills could win. Going into last season, Gailey even chose Edwards over Fitz as the starting QB. Just because you hear expressions of support for a QB does not mean he's the long-term answer. The relevant question is not whether Fitz is or isn't an upgrade over Edwards. (Any more than the relevant question a year ago was whether Edwards was an upgrade over Losman.) The question we should be asking is, "Does Fitz look the way a franchise QB is supposed to look?" In some ways the answer is yes. But Fitz does not have the consistent accuracy you have to have from any long-term answer at QB. The yards per attempt stat is not "ridiculous," as you put it. I defy you to show me either a) a franchise QB from any era since the merger who's failed to put up a solid yards per attempt stat, or b) a QB with a long career and a very solid yards per attempt stat who was clearly nowhere near being a franchise QB. I strongly doubt you're going to find either one of those players, no matter how hard you look. The yards per attempt stat really is that important. In Fitz's case, his so-so yards per attempt stat indicate a QB who struggles with accuracy, despite the many other things he does well.

John Elway threw for 300 TDs in 7250 attempts, for a TD percentage of 4.1%. Kelly Holcomb threw for 39 TDs in 893 attempts, for a TD percentage of 4.4%. Does that mean that Holcomb was a slightly better quarterback than John Elway? Elway's career QB rating is 79.9, whereas Holcomb's is 79.2. Not a huge difference. A person who used either TD percentage or QB ratings as his primary evaluation tool would conclude that John Elway and Kelly Holcomb were about equally good! But now let's look at yards per attempt. Holcomb averaged 6.6 yards per attempt over the course of his career, which puts him in the category of "decent, not great, starter." Elway averaged 7.1 yards per attempt over the course of his career, giving him a commanding advantage over Holcomb. Which is exactly as it should be! I'll grant that I set 7.2 yards per attempt as the lower limit for what a QB needed to achieve to be considered franchise. But that's for current era QBs. Elway played in a different era with less passing-friendly rules, and his supporting cast wasn't exactly the best that's ever been seen. He was clearly a franchise QB, even if he didn't get that last 0.1 yard per attempt!

If Kyle Williams can make the Pro Bowl as an undersized NT, think of how well he could do at a position for which he was the appropriate size!

I agree it would have been a mistake for the Bills to have taken either Newton or Gabbert at third overall. I would like to have seen the Bills trade back into the first for Ponder. But Ponder was taken way too high for that to happen. Opportunities to acquire franchise QBs are very rare, and it appears as though this may not have been the year to have acquired one. If there is no season in 2011, it's my understanding that the Bills will have the third overall pick in the 2012 draft. That could put them into an excellent position to acquire a franchise guy. In the meantime, my first impression of the Bills' 2011 draft is a very positive one! As for the Bills' defensive line, Kyle Williams is listed at a svelte 306 pounds. That's too light for an NT, and is about right for a 3-4 LDE. I'd like to see Troup and Jasper get the snaps at NT, with Williams as the starting LDE and Dareus the starting RDE.