Orton's Arm

I can't argue with this. Marv turned the 12th overall pick into a player who was worth no more than a 4th rounder on the open market. That was hardly the mark of a good GM. That said, I'd rather have an early fourth rounder than a later one.

I strongly disagree with the bolded part of your post. Bill Polian has had top-5 picks on four separate occasions. He used those picks on Bruce Smith, Kerry Collins, Peyton Manning, and Edgerrin James. Over the years, he's also had a lot of picks in the lower third of the first round. Some of those players worked out well, and some were busts. None were nearly as valuable as Smith or Manning, and few worked out as well as James. If you have a good GM like Polian, draft position does matter, for the same reason that a great artist can achieve more with first-rate paint supplies than he can with a box of crayons. But a lousy GM like Matt Millen will likely waste even his top-5 picks, for the same reason that a non-artist can't produce a good painting even with the most expensive art supplies you can find.

You and Bill have made excellent points about the new regime's failures. Take the RB position for example. In the late '90s the Bills used a first round pick on Antowain Smith. Then in 2001 TD used a second round pick on Travis Henry. In 2003 he used a first rounder on McGahee; and in 2006 Levy used a first rounder on Lynch. In the space of less than ten years, the Bills used three first rounders and a second rounder on the RB position. That's ridiculous. If those three first rounders and that second rounder had been spent on offensive linemen, and if those linemen worked out reasonably well for their draft positions, the Bills' running game would have been much better off; and their quarterbacks would have had a lot more time to throw. Unfortunately, the first thing Buddy Nix did in his first draft with the Bills was to use the 9th overall pick on yet another running back. If Spiller becomes the next Thurman Thomas, and if his presence on the roster keeps the Bills from drafting an intended starter at RB for the next 10+ years, I'll be happy with the pick. And Spiller was the highest-rated player on the board when the Bills picked--by a significant margin--which seemed to suggest he might have a Thurman-like career. However, he's certainly not off to a Thurman-like start! Unless he significantly improves, he'll be no better than Antowain Smith/Travis Henry/Willis McGahee/Marshawn Lynch. As for the players the Bills drafted for the 3-4--I'm not too discouraged by that. Most teams spend a couple of years quietly acquiring the talent for a 3-4 before making the transition to it. Assuming the long-term plan is still to transition to the 3-4, I have no objection at all to the Bills' adding players uniquely suited to that defense. To address your point about building through the draft--it all depends on what the front office means when they say that. To me personally, "build through the draft," means that when one of your drafted players is successful, you don't let him go first-contract-and-out. It also means that you don't trade away first round picks for aging, second-string quarterbacks from the Patriots. Hopefully, the Bills' front office's definition of building through the draft is similar to mine.

This game was a measuring stick, and demonstrated the team has a long way to go before it draws close to New England. In my opinion, the two biggest factors in the Patriots' win were these: 1) Quarterback play. Fitz made good decisions throughout the game. But he often failed to make accurate throws. In previous weeks Fitz's errant passes were sometimes dropped by stone-handed defenders. Today those passes were intercepted. In a game where Fitz needed to provide elite QB play to balance out Brady, he clearly came up short. 2) Time to throw. Brady had all day to throw because of the Bills' lack of pass rush. Meanwhile, Fitz had to deal with problems on the Bills' OL--especially at RT. Solving the first problem will only take one guy--but that guy should be Andrew Luck. Getting him would involve paying a very high draft day price to Carolina, assuming they're willing to trade their pick at all. Solving the second problem would take a RT, possibly one or more additional OL, and probably at least two front-7 defensive players. The Bills are probably at least two years away from matching the quality of the Patriots' OL and defensive front-7, even if they invest all their early draft picks into the project. Unfortunately, getting Andrew Luck would also likely use up 1.5 years' worth of early draft picks (at least). So the Bills are probably at least four years away from being competitive with the Patriots, assuming that the front office does an above-average job of player selection, and assuming that the two above-mentioned problems are solved through the draft. If, however, the Bills elect to stick with Fitz, we should expect to see more games in which the Bills lose because Fitz got badly outplayed by Brady.

If you listen to Belichick long enough, you'll come away with the impression that the Bills' roster is full of Pro Bowlers and future Hall of Famers, and that the Lawyer Milloy bowl happened just yesterday. That said, he's dead right about Fred Jackson being a very good back.

Several years back, I had the deep misfortune to have received Keith Olbermann's book as a gift. The book is called The Worst Person in the World, and 202 Strong Contenders. I began reading the book until I made it to the first obvious instance of libel, and then I stopped. In other words, I didn't make it past the prologue. From the prologue: Note that in the above passages--both from the libelous prologue, I might add--Olbermann is claiming two things. 1) Gibson's position represents a "perversion of faith" and a "twisting of religion," implicitly for Gibson's own purposes. 2) Keith Olbermann has read the Bible. At least one of those claims is a lie. The Gospel of John, 3:18, states the following "Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God." Romans 3:22-25 states, "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. They are now justified by grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus whom got put forward as a sacrifice of atonement by his blood, effective through faith." Romans 6:23 states, "The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." At least according to Pauline theology, Jesus was sacrificed on the cross to redeem humanity from sin. One goes about accepting this sacrifice for oneself by believing in Jesus and accepting salvation from him. The theme of salvation through faith alone is replete throughout Paul's epistles, and it is impossible to read them without coming away with that message. Both the Gospel of John and the epistles of Paul place a very strong emphasis on the importance of faith in general, and on belief in Jesus in particular. People are free to disagree with that if they so choose. But they should not feel free to grossly misrepresent the message of the Gospel of John and of Paul's epistles in order to make false accusations against people like John Gibson. Under no circumstances whatsoever is it appropriate to use dishonest tactics to smear a political opponent. I don't care who the opponent is or what his ideology is. Olbermann's idea of the worst people in the world seems to include conservative commentators, as well as just about anyone else who disagrees with him. Tom Cruise was awarded "today's worst person in the world" award, not for anything Scientology-related, but because of the following exchange. "Asked by the German tabloid Bildt if he believes in aliens, Cruise snapped at this guy too. 'Yes, of course. Are you really so arrogant as to believe we are alone in the universe?' Maybe Tom is from another planet." I'll grant that Cruise's use of the word "arrogant" was a little annoying. But that hardly makes him one of the worst people in the world! As for aliens: there are at least 100 billion stars in the Milky Way galaxy, and there are hundreds of billions of galaxies in the observed universe. You'd think that somewhere out there, there must be aliens. Olbermann is an embarrassment to himself, and to any network or news organization that affiliates itself with him.

To repeat: my concerns about Fitz are based on what I see on the field in terms of accuracy issues, as well as on his average yards per attempt. I'm not too worried about the completion percentage stat. That stat tends to give too many rewards to guys who dump the ball off a lot--like Trent Edwards--while punishing players who take more high risk/high reward shots down the field. Yards per attempt is a fair way of comparing players from the first category with players from the second. You mentioned that the Bills' offensive line still needs some work, and you're right. But still. In the time Warner spent with the Cardinals, his average yards per attempt were as follows: 7.3 7.7 7.9 8.2 7.2 He did that with Mike Gandy at LT. When he had Orlando Pace as his LT he did even more; and put up numbers like 8.7, 9.9. and 8.8 while with the Rams. So your point is well-taken: problems with the offensive line will cause a noticeable decrease in a quarterback's average yards per attempt stat. But the Cardinals line Warner had was at least as bad as the Bills line from this year, and probably worse. Demetrius Bell is certainly a better LT than Mike Gandy. But that said, even Warner's worst year with the Cardinals (7.2 yards per attempt) was a lot better than the year Fitz is having for the Bills. Warner averaged about 7.7 yards per pass attempt with the Cards, which is a lot better than Fitz's 6.8 yards per attempt for 2010. Fitz is playing like one of the ten or twelve best quarterbacks in the league. He is not the problem, in the sense that he's doing a good job. The point I'm trying to convey is the difference between the play Fitz is providing and elite quarterback play. If you transition from a guy who's merely above-average (such as Fitz) to a guy who's truly elite (like Warner), it fundamentally alters the dynamics of your entire team. That's why it's worthwhile to pay a high price for an elite QB, even when you already have an above-average QB like Fitz.

I don't recall saying I was only comparing completion percentage. Kurt Warner is probably going to be a first ballot Hall of Fame quarterback. While I'm impressed by Fitz's toughness, moxie, intelligence, ability to read defenses, and on-field generalship, he's no Kurt Warner. A quarterback's yards per pass attempt stat is almost as important as a running back's average yards per rush stat. Ryan Fitzpatrick has averaged 6.0 yards per pass attempt for his career. This season he's averaging 6.8 yards per pass attempt--a solid improvement. Over the course of his career, Kurt Warner has averaged 7.9 yards per passing attempt. That's just one of the reasons why Kurt Warner will be in the Hall of Fame, and Ryan Fitzpatrick won't be. Granted, Kurt Warner's yards per attempt stat is very high. Even Peyton Manning "only" has a career average of 7.6 yards per attempt. To put this in perspective, Trent Edwards has a career average of 6.5 yards per passing attempt. Obviously, Fitz is playing at a much higher level this year than Edwards ever has. No question there. But the fact remains that Fitz's yards per attempt average for the season of 6.8 is a lot more like Edwards' career average of 6.5 than it is like Warner's career average of 7.9 or Manning's average of 7.6. The reason for that is simple: Warner and Manning will make throws that Fitzpatrick will miss. You can see that when you watch the games. Fitz will throw an errant pass here, or a bad pass there. People tend to overlook or forgive that because of the good plays and good decisions he makes at other times, and because it's obvious he gives the position everything he has. But those bad throws show up in the stats, and hurt the team over the course of the game. A team that gets Fitz-level play from the quarterback position is going to be at a significant disadvantage when facing a team that gets Warner- or Manning-level of play.

My own personal preference is for a methodical "system QB" like Joe Montana versus a "gunslinger" like Brett Favre. Both styles of play can be very effective if executed at a high enough level. But for the purposes of the rest of my post, I'd like to put aside the question of whether a QB was a system QB or a gunslinger to focus on whether he delivered high quality play. Let's take a closer look at the QBs from Super Bowl teams listed above: Tom Brady x 4 Kurt Warner x 3 (including one SB win before your data set started) Ben Roethlisberger x 2 Peyton Manning x 2 Steve McNair Trent Dilfer Kerry Collins Brad Johnson Rich Gannon Jake Delhomme Donovan McNabb Matt Hasselbeck Rex Grossman Drew Brees I think we can agree that everyone who made it multiple times was or is a very good or even elite QB. Tom Brady, Kurt Warner and Peyton Manning will all be in the Hall of Fame; and Ben Roethlisberger is very solid. The question is how many of the single appearance guys played at a high level the year their teams appeared in the Super Bowl. Drew Brees played as well as Peyton Manning did the year the Saints won the Super Bowl. Winning a Super Bowl isn't about comparing careers: it's a question of how good player X is in comparison to player Y on one particular day. On the day the Saints faced the Colts, the Saints received QB play every bit as good as the Colts received. Another single-appearance QB whose team won the Super Bowl was Trent Dilfer. Dilfer's was clearly a case where one of the three greatest defenses in NFL history balanced out the Ravens' weakness at the QB spot. No Bills player not named Kyle Williams could even dream of starting for that defense. The third single-appearance QB whose team won the SB was Brad Johnson. Johnson had a Pro Bowl year the year his team won the Super Bowl, and the stats to go with it. Tampa Bay had the best defense in the league that year, but they also had a QB whose level of play put him in the top-5 or top-7 in the league--at least for that particular year. All the other single-appearance QBs on the above list were on teams that lost their respective Super Bowls. But even in those cases, the teams often received strong QB play. Jake Delhomme is not now a credible quarterback. But he was good back when he led the Panthers to their Super Bowl appearance against the Patriots. Donovan McNabb also played very well the year his team made the Super Bowl. Ditto Matt Hasselbeck and Steve McNair. Rich Gannon also came on strong late in his career, and had a Montana-like ability to hit receivers in perfect stride. His play at QB was a big reason why the Raiders got to the Super Bowl. Rex Grossman didn't exactly set the world on fire at QB--which is one of the reasons why his team lost the SB. The reason they made it there in the first place was because of defense and special teams. Kerry Collins was better than Grossman, but not as good as any of the above Super Bowl winning QBs except for Dilfer. Overall, the list of QBs whose teams lost the Super Bowl is a much less impressive-looking one than the list of the QBs on teams that won Super Bowls. That's not a coincidence.

I agree that Fitz and Warner are similar in that Fitz was chosen a little later in the draft, and Warner went undrafted. But where they differ is that it became obvious very quickly that Warner was a very accurate passer almost immediately upon his getting the Rams' starting position. In contrast, Fitz had traditionally been regarded as a career backup due in large part to his accuracy issues. He's gotten better about that this season, but does not have the consistent accuracy you'd expect from a top-tier QB. As for Fitz's current stats: its useful to remember that guys like Jay Fiedler and Tyler Thigpen put up good stats with Gailey as their head coach. Yes, Fitz is a better quarterback than either of those two. Yes, his method of getting those good stats is different from/better than theirs. And yes, if he stopped improving today, he'd still have to be regarded as a top-15 quarterback. But his accuracy is still an issue--albeit not as much of one as it used to be. Part of being an elite quarterback is having that consistent, deadly accuracy--a trait Fitz lacks. Edit: I'd wanted to reply to one or two of the other posts on this thread. Unfortunately, when I try to post consecutively, my two little posts get lumped together into one big post. Until or unless that (irritating) feature gets turned off, I'll have to wait until others post to this thread before adding additional responses.

Dramatic or no, John has a point. If you want to achieve any significant task, you need to begin by envisioning your desired end goal. No one ever built a car from scratch by accident, or fortuitously stumbled into building a great monument. Most people on these boards seem focused on the short-term. They point out that a new OLB or DE would help the team more in 2011 than would a rookie QB. They add that it will be a while before said rookie QB will be able to provide what Fitz can give. All those are valid points. But that's looking at things from the wrong direction. Instead, you need to have a completed picture in your head--a vision of what the team should look like as they get ready to hoist that Lombadi trophy over their heads. That vision should be based on the actual data of past Super Bowl winners. Once you have that picture of where you need to be, you compare it to where you are today. The differences between those two things are the list of what you need. Once you've made that list of things you must obtain, you should go about getting them. Currently the Bills have a solid quarterback in the form of Fitz. What we need is an elite quarterback, because that's what Super Bowl winners and serious contenders typically have. There are other things we need as well before we hoist that Lombardi trophy. But a franchise quarterback is both the most difficult-to-attain, and single most important, component. Luck has been billed as being somewhere between Matt Ryan and Peyton Manning. Assuming he lives up to that billing, he will be the franchise quarterback that some team needs. I would not hesitate to trade Fitz + the Bills' 2011 first rounder + one or two other things of major value to the Carolina Panthers in order to draft Luck. (Assuming he declares.) Yes, losing all those things would set the Bills' rebuilding effort back significantly. But that short-term setback would also imply a significantly higher ceiling for the rebuilding effort once it's finished. If Luck lives up to his billing, his ceiling will be a lot higher than Fitz's; which means that the ceiling for the Bills as a whole will also be a lot higher. Much like Peyton Manning has lifted the ceiling for the Colts, or Kurt Warner lifted the ceiling for the Cardinals. Kurt Warner + the Cardinals is an excellent example of how a quarterback can raise a team's ceiling. That team made it to the Super Bowl despite a suspect defense, and despite having Mike Gandy as their LT!! Granted, both those things came back to haunt them in that Super Bowl itself. That shows there's a limit to how much a Hall of Fame quarterback and top-tier receiving corps can compensate for the flaws of the players around them. But that said, there's no question the Cardinals wouldn't have made it to the Super Bowl at all with Matt Leinart at quarterback. And--as much as I respect Fitz's heart and intelligence--I very strongly doubt the Cardinals would have made it to the Super Bowl if they'd had him instead of Warner. If the Bills get their hands on the closest thing to Warner they can (Andrew Luck) and if they do a better job of surrounding Luck with talent than the Cardinals did with their quarterback, a Super Bowl win becomes a very realistic possibility.

I get that. For the record, I didn't want the Bills to take Tebow; and I felt pessimistic about his prospects as a QB. I didn't see the Denver game, so I can't comment on how good or bad he looked in that game. Overall though, I've seen little or nothing to change my prior, pessimistic opinion of his NFL prospects. A single 8-16 performance does not seem to warrant the "shame on you" attitude that the OP had toward Tebow haters. Someone else in this thread made the point that a good quarterback can lift the play of the guys around him, and pointed to Fitz as an example of that. That point is well-taken. But that said, the Bills have gone 4-8 this season with Fitz as their starter. If we were to judge Fitz's season just based on "his" record as a starter, we'd conclude he's a significantly below-average quarterback. While I'd rather have Luck than Fitz, I think we can all agree Fitz is a much better quarterback than "his" 4-8 record as a starter would seem to suggest. It's a team sport, and those eight losses were usually the fault of other players, not of Fitz.

The Dean's point--with which I agree--is that football is a team sport, so it doesn't make sense to assign wins or losses to specific individual players. No one ever says that a LG or ROLB "won" this many games or "lost" that many. Rather, the team on which those guys played won or lost those games. A quarterback is no different. Take the best quarterback ever and put him on a team devoid of talent, and that team will lose a lot more games than it wins. Conversely, you could take a below-average quarterback--Trent Dilfer, for example--and put him on a team stocked with talent, and come away with a Super Bowl win.

A very solid post! You did a good job of describing the hamster wheel the Bills have been running on at CB. Draft Clements, let Winfield walk. Let Clements and Greer walk, draft McKelvin. The hamster wheel keeps spinning, and the Bills don't get anywhere. As you hinted at in your post, a similar hamster wheel has been in place at RB. A second round pick was used on Henry, despite the fact he wasn't a significant upgrade over Antowain Smith. A few short years later, the Bills squandered a first round pick on a RB with Willis McGahee. Then they traded McGahee away and used a first rounder on Lynch. Most recently, Lynch has been traded away, with a top-10 pick used on Spiller. That's three first rounders and a second rounder on RBs in just the last ten years alone! (Plus another first rounder in the late '90s for Antowain Smith.) I think you've done a good job of describing Whitner's limitations as a coverage SS.

A solid post! Fitz is a solid QB; and is a lot better than Edwards or Losman. No doubt about that. But like you've pointed out yourself, he's still not at Brady's level of play; and that still gives the Patriots a significant advantage. If you want a solid offense, you should have very good-to-eilte players at three key positions: QB, LT, #1 WR. Players like that often last a very long time: look at the length of Orlando Pace's useful career, or Peyton Manning's, or Jerry Rice's. More generally, elite offenses seem to last a long time. Joe Montana and the 49ers' offense put that team in Super Bowl contention for a decade. Conversely, the Chicago Bears had an elite defense in '85, but they failed to maintain that defense for nearly as long as the 49ers maintained their elite offense. The Bears won just one Super Bowl to Montana's four because their elite defense came and went so quickly. Likewise, the Ravens won that one Super Bowl back in 2000, but they too failed to maintain an elite defense over the course of a number of years. This is not to say they weren't still good for a while--but there's a big difference between having an above-average, tough defense, and having a Ravens of 2000 defense. The Patriots are another example of this: their defense has obviously faded, and is being rebuilt. Meanwhile, their top-tier offense keeps performing at a high level. Another example is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They had an elite defense for a while back in 2002, but that's long since faded away. Meanwhile, Peyton Manning and the Colts maintained an elite-level offense for a very long period of time. If you want an elite offense, you may be able to get by with a LT who's merely above-average. Matt Light is no Orlando Pace. You may even be able to get by without an elite WR; as the Patriots' offense did for many years. But you have to have an elite QB. That's the one position where you can't afford to skimp. That's why I favor trading up in the draft to take Andrew Luck, assuming that option will be available to the Bills. He's being billed as a safe pick who will pan out somewhere between Matt Ryan and Peyton Manning. Surround a guy like that with the kinds of unexpected success stories that keep cropping up on the offense--Steve Johnson, Nelson, etc.--and you'll have a very Patriots'-like offense! If you were to then add an Orlando Pace and a Larry Fitzgerald to the mix, and fill all offensive holes with solid players, you'd have an offense that would be feared.

My guess is that Evans will be here at least another year. You mentioned a lot of young guys with talent. The problem is that too many of those guys have proven too little, at least thus far, for the coaching staff and front office to likely feel safe without Lee Evans. However, if Evans has another down year next season, and if the guys you mentioned continue to prove themselves, the Bills could well start thinking about trading Evans away after the 2011 season is done.

It's also worth noting that both teams had elite QBs (Aikman for the Cowboys, Young for the 49ers). Those two QBs largely canceled each other out. If only one of those teams had had an elite QB, the competition between them would have been considerably different. Over the last decade, the Patriots have had a significant advantage over the Bills in terms of quarterback play. A Bills win therefore requires the Bills to outplay the Patriots in other areas of the game by enough to cancel out the Patriots' quarterbacking edge. It has been a very long time since that's happened. If the Bills want to beat the Patriots, it would really help if the Bills could eliminate the Patriots' advantage in quarterback play. The only way to do that is to acquire an elite quarterback of our own.

Thanks for the information-laden posts. A key thing to remember is that Cornell Green played a lot better last year (when he earned that 61) than he has this year. Possibly, some of that drop-off is that he's getting on in years. Someone also suggested the possibility he's been playing hurt. Any time you pay $3 million a year for a player who embarrasses himself the way Cornell Green did, it gets marked down as a front office mistake. But I don't see how the front office could be blamed for failing to realize that Cornell Green's play would suddenly plummet. To its credit, the front office realized its mistake and moved on.

If you want to have a lot of running plays over the course of the game, you need a good passing attack. Sure, you'd love it if every time you handed the ball to your RB, it was 5 yards here, 6 yards there. There will be times when it's just like that. But there will be other times when your RB is stuffed for no gain, or maybe gets a yard or two. If you're trying to score with just your running game, you're going to need long, many-play drives. Even if a drive gets off to a good start with a few good runs and a few first downs, you have to think about how you're going to sustain that drive once the defense makes a few tackles closer to the line of scrimmage. Once you start seeing 3rd-and-6 or 3rd-and-7 situations--which you will see sooner or later--the question becomes, can your passing attack bail out your running game? Can your QB and his receivers keep your offense on the field for another set of downs so that you can keep running the ball? A good example of the above is the NY Giants offense that the Bills faced in their first Super Bowl. The Giants had a good running game, which they relied on fairly heavily. But the reason that running game was on the field as much as it was had a lot to do with Jeff Hostetler throwing passes to guys like Mark Bavaro. That passing attack did an excellent job of turning third downs into first downs.

I agree with the above for the most part. Whitner is a good hitter and a good tackler, which is something you like to see in your SS. I'm even willing to forgive his hands of stone. Antoine Winfield also had hands of stone, and was an excellent CB for the Bills and Vikings. But what I can't forgive him for is being a liability in pass coverage. Any time you pick a SS 8th overall, you need to be able to put him one-on-one against the better TEs in the league and be okay. With Whitner you can't. Some aspects of George Wilson's game are better than Whitner's, which is why last season Whitner had been benched for a while in favor of Wilson. Whitner's having a better year this year than last year. Possibly that's because the new defense is a good fit for him. Or maybe it's because he thinks of this season as the season he's supposed to get his big contract. But whatever the reason, I'm not necessarily convinced that replacing Whitner with Wilson would lead to a huge drop-off in the quality of play at SS. The bigger toll would be on the Bills' depth at the safety position. While it's never good to lose depth, I'm not so worried about the depth at the SS position that I feel the urge to overpay Whitner, or offer him top-15 SS money.

Our conversation went something like this: Edwards'_Arm: [various football-related observations] JohnC: "your comments are thoughtful and illuminating," + various football-related observations. Edwards'_Arm: "I agree with the above." Obviously--obviously--my "I agree with the above" comment was directed at your football-related observations, not your statement that my comments were thoughtful and illuminating. I didn't need to agree with your "thoughtful and illuminating" comment, because it was self-evident!

I agree with the above. Passing has become progressively more important, especially in key situations. A good passing game allows an offense to bail itself out if first or second down failed to generate as many yards as planned. You can't really rely on your running game to bail you out of third-and-ten situations, at least not with any degree of consistency. Since you're going to face a number of third-and-long situations over the course of the game, you need a good passing attack to deal with them. Once you have that attack, there's no sense in using it only on third down. You may as well use it all the time, just as the Patriots do. You can even use short passes to partially take the place of running plays, just as the 49ers did back in the '80s and the Patriots do today. But you'll almost never be able to use running plays to take the place of 10+ yard passing plays. Good points. A QB needs a certain minimum level of arm strength to succeed in the NFL. Having more strength than just the minimum is nice, but not nearly as important as accuracy or mental acuity. That said, I agree that the minimum level of arm strength required is higher in Buffalo than in a warm-weather city or a domed stadium. I also agree that when the weather is terrible the running game becomes more important. I like your idea of getting Boss to upgrade the offense. Weather-related game planning adjustments are also key. A year or two ago, the Bills played Cleveland (I think), in a game late in the year. There was considerable snow on the ground and guys kept slipping. The Bills' offensive coordinator called a lot of timing routes, and the snow interfered with the receivers' timing. Conversely, the Cleveland OC called plays in which the receivers were supposed to stop and catch the ball. The weather didn't affect those routes nearly as much. Fortunately, I have every confidence in the current Bills' coaching staff's ability to adjust its offensive playcalling to the weather!

I agree with you and JohnC on this. They should either take the best player available or trade down. Although--if the best player available is a 93 and is at a position of non-need; and the next-best is rated 91 and fills a need, I'd have no objection to their taking the 91. As for RB: their careers are generally short. Also, unless you have an elite RB like Barry Sanders or Jim Brown, the quality of your run blocking and offensive line will have a much stronger impact on the success of your running game than will the quality of your RBs. Not only that, but the New York Times did a regression analysis which showed that improving your passing game by one standard deviation was four times more helpful than was improving your running game by one standard deviation. As for DBs: the Bills have a very bad habit of letting their young, talented DBs escape in free agency. During the last decade alone, there have been three times when the Bills' DB with the best combination of youth + proven accomplishment left in free agency with no compensation. It doesn't make sense to use early picks on CBs until or unless that problem gets fixed. Even if that problem were to be fixed, there are other holes I'd like to see filled before the defensive secondary gets addressed yet again.

I love what I've seen of Luck's play myself, and the experts seem to agree with me. I've heard him described as being somewhere between Matt Ryan and Peyton Manning. I realize Luck won't be there when the Bills pick. Unless, of course, we trade up. Currently, the Bills have a good, young QB in the form of Fitz. A QB like that is worth a lot in the trade. If we were to knock on the Panthers' door, and were to offer them the 5th overall pick, + Fitz, + something else of major value in return for the first overall pick, they might well agree. Hopefully, they would conclude that it would be better to get two or three of their needs taken care of than just one need. Obviously, a rookie Luck or a non-rookie Brohm will play less well than Fitz has been playing. That trade would mean a few less wins in 2011 than we otherwise would have had. But if Luck lives up to his billing, the long-term value of adding him would be almost impossible to overstate. Getting a true franchise QB is both the most difficult, and single most useful, thing you can do to improve your football team. Opportunities to get an Andrew Luck are very rare. It's not just that he's good, he's known to be good. He's a low risk/high reward pick for essentially the same reasons Peyton Manning was low risk/high reward. The problem with waiting a year to find the franchise QB is that the Bills' position in the 2012 draft will be significantly worse than their position in 2011. If there won't be any Andrew Lucks falling to the Bills at 5th overall (or wherever we end up), there certainly won't be any falling to picks 15 - 25 (which is where I envision the Bills picking in 2012). Granted, there will still be the occasional QB chosen outside the top-10 of the draft who turns into a franchise QB. But guys like that are rare; and they need to significantly exceed the expectations associated with their draft positions. This is the organization that awarded the starting position to Edwards rather than Fitzpatrick. How likely are we, really, to find the next Drew Brees story or Tom Brady story? If you don't have a franchise QB, and if there's a chance of getting one, you pay the price you have to pay to get him. Then you build around that franchise QB, and turn the Bills into a serious threat to do something dangerous in the playoffs!

An excellent point. If the Patriots are lining up Tom Brady at quarterback, and the Bills are lining up Losman or Bledsoe or Trent Edwards, the Patriots are already well on their way to victory. I'll grant Fitzpatrick is a better QB than any of those other QBs (except for Bledsoe's first eight games here), but he isn't Tom Brady.