Orton's Arm

My point about the cars was this: a man who drives an expensive car sends a signal that he has a lot of money. But in order to send that signal, he has to give up a portion of the money he otherwise would have had. Likewise, a team that wins a lot of games sends a signal that it has a lot of talent. But to send that signal, it must give up a portion of the draft day talent it otherwise would have received. Since you want me to address Koufax's post, I'll do so here. The above post makes the following points: 1) Picking 4 - 6 isn't necessarily much different than picking 1st overall. 2) Drafting well is better than drafting high. 3) Many of the players of the future are already on the team. Winning games helps develop them. 4) Teams that pick very early in the draft generally don't turn themselves into serious playoff contenders very quickly. It was not until Manning's 6th season that the Colts went to the AFC Championship game. 5) If the Bills lose out on Luck (as they probably will), it's possible some other QB--such as Mallett or Locker--will turn out to be just as good. The truth of point 1) depends on what year you're drafting and the players that are there when you pick. If it's a Peyton Manning year, the difference between 1st overall and 2nd - 5th overall is huge, and cannot be overstated. If it's a Long/Long/Ryan draft, then anywhere in the top-3 is a very good place to be: especially if Ryan falls to you at #3! If Luck declares for the upcoming draft, he will go first overall, and the dropoff between 1st and 2nd overall will be very substantial. Point #2 is true. Matt Millen's top-5 pick will likely do significantly less well than Bill Polian's pick in the 20 - 32 range. However, Bill Polian's top-5 pick will likely do significantly better than his 20 - 32 pick would have. There's some truth to point #3. But if you want to develop players, just getting them out on the field and having them play well is more important than your team's record. Let's say that the Bills end the season with a 2-14 record: significantly worse than last year's. Even with a record like that, this season will have been very, very useful to the development of a guy like Steve Johnson. Conversely, last season's wins probably didn't do much to help Steve Johnson's development or his self-confidence, because he was sitting on the bench, watching Terrell Owens play. As for point #4, a team that finishes with a 1-15 record will generally not have much talent. It will usually take several years to acquire enough necessary talent to advance deep in the playoffs. Winning games does not increase the team's level of talent, and losing games does not decrease it. Re. point #5: I have more confidence in Ponder than I do in Mallett or Locker. But that's beside the point. Luck is the real deal here: a guy who looks to be somewhere between a Matt Ryan and a Peyton Manning. No other player combines his level of upside with his lack of downside. (A quarterback's upside is located between his ears; and not in his arms or his legs. Joe Montana didn't have a strong arm, and he did okay.) Yes, it's possible some other QB in the upcoming draft will have as good a career as Luck. But the odds are against it, as indicated by the quarterbacks' respective draft positions; and by what those draft positions say about GMs' opinions of those quarterbacks' respective chances. The number of truly elite quarterbacks in the league is very limited. Luck has a better chance of joining the ranks of those elite QBs than does any other draft prospect. If the Bills finish with a top-5 pick, they should seriously consider trading up to draft Luck. (Assuming he declares.) The better their pick, the smaller the price will be to trade up.

I agree that doing well in the second half of the season is a fairly good predictor of wins the following year. Conversely, getting a top-5 pick in a given draft does not seem strongly correlated with the number of wins in the subsequent season. The number of games your team will win is driven by the quality of the coaching and by the quality of the players. A team that goes 5-3 in the second half of the season likely has better players, a better coaching staff, and even a better general manager than does a team with a 1-15 record for the year. But losing football games does not subtract from the quality of your coaching staff, the quality of your players, or the ability of your front office personnel. What it does do is give your general manager a better, more powerful tool on draft day. A general manager like Matt Millen will likely squander his first round pick no matter how good it is. But in the abler hands of a Bill Polian, that very early pick can turn into a special player. It is the number and quality of special players--among other factors--that ultimately drives the number of wins your team will achieve. A good analogy is this: a guy that drives around in a shiny new Mercedes likely has more money in his bank account than a guy who drives a more modest vehicle. But it would be illogical to conclude that choosing the Mercedes over the mid-level car would automatically result in more money in your account.

As you know already, there are four possible causes for a correlation between A and B. They are: 1) A causes B 2) B causes A 3) C causes A and B 4) Coincidence A team that wins a bunch of games over the course of the year probably has good talent and a good coaching staff. Those things will help it win games the next year. If A is the number of wins in a given season, and B is the number of wins in a subsequent season, this is a situation where C causes A and B. (C here being the team's level of talent and quality of coaching.) Winning more games does not increase the quality of your team's talent or improve the quality of its coaching. You could argue that players will start playing better once they gain more confidence in the team as a whole. But why does that increase in confidence have to take place right now? Why not lose a few more games to close out the season, get the good draft position, and worry about players' confidence come next season? I'm not suggesting that players should try to lose: that's a bad habit to get into. But it's better for the team if the Bills lose the rest of their games this season.

I agree that Fitz + a Ravens of 2000 defense > Luck + our current defense. However, a lot of people don't realize how good that Ravens defense truly was. The Ravens played a 4-3. Every guy on that defensive line was someone you'd like to double-team. Maybe Kyle Williams is somewhat comparable to his Ravens counterpart, but no one else on the Bills' DL is anywhere close. Not only did the Ravens have four very, very good players on their front-4, but they had a very good LB corps to back them up. Ray Lewis got a lot of attention, but realistically all three starters on that LB corps were at or near a Pro Bowl level. Finally there was the Ravens' secondary. They had a pair of shutdown cornerbacks to go along with guys like Ed Reed in the secondary. There were no weaknesses on that defense for other teams to attack. None. Every Ravens player had the potential to dominate his counterpart on the other team's offense. To dominate consistently, and by a wide margin. That defense didn't involve a lot of smoke and mirrors; but completely smothered offenses by consistently winning their physical matchups. If the Bills had a defense like that, and if they were to fill the hole at RT, they'd very likely win the Super Bowl. However, the Bills are ten defensive starters away from having a defense like that. You'd need to upgrade every DL not named Kyle Williams, you'd need to upgrade every LB, you'd need a pair of shutdown corners, and you'd need upgrades at both safety spots. The worst of those ten upgrades would have to be at or near a Pro Bowl level; and the best would have to be at or near a Hall of Fame level. Acquiring that much talent is possible--the Ravens did it, after all--but adding a player like Luck would be simpler, easier, and less expensive in terms of draft picks.

I hope Frazier pulls a Perry Fewell and leads his team to a few meaningless wins. No sense in having the Vikings draft ahead of the Bills.

You've made some good points in your post, and have touched upon several subjects I've thought of myself. But before I jump right into addressing those, I want to say a few things first. Every team would love to have 22 elite players as its starters. However, there just isn't enough talent in the league at any one time to make that happen. Even in a very well-run team there are still going to be compromises. There will be positions where you'll have guys who are just "okay," because the talent in the NFL is spread too thin to allow teams to have 22 stars. Part of building a team involves finding ways to maximize the overall amount of talent on your team. But part of it also involves deciding where you want your elite players to be. A few years ago, Bill Parcells and the Dolphins had the first overall pick in the draft. They had the chance to add an elite player with that pick--but only one elite player. Parcells' choices were LT, RDE, or QB. He chose the LT and got a very good player. But now the Dolphins are plagued with quarterback problems. The rebuilding effort which got off to such a fast start now seems to have hit its ceiling, and that ceiling seems surprisingly low. Some (including me) would argue that the ceiling would have been higher had Parcells chosen the quarterback--Matt Ryan--instead of the LT. Now the Dolphins don't have any more Matt Ryan opportunities, because they're no longer picking in the top-5 of the draft. Every general manager needs to ask himself, "If I'm limited to having a relatively small number of elite players, which positions do I most want to have those elite players play?" Those are the positions the GM should gravitate towards with his earliest picks in the first round. You do what you can to create a core of elite players; and then you surround them with other players who are good, or at least serviceable. I would argue that if you want to win the Super Bowl, you almost have to have one of those elite players be your quarterback. An elite quarterback exerts a considerably greater influence on the outcome of the game than (for example) an elite SS or an elite TE. If your opponent has an elite quarterback and you don't, you're probably going to need a commanding talent advantage at other positions to balance out that effect. The deeper you advance in the playoffs, the more likely you are to encounter teams that have elite QB + above-average non-QB talent. Balancing out your own lack of an elite QB becomes increasingly difficult. But there is a very limited number of elite-level quarterbacks to go around. It's like a game of musical chair with 32 contestants and perhaps six or eight chairs. Being one of the small number of teams to actually acquire an elite QB is the first in a series of steps to take your team to a Super Bowl title. Trading up for an elite prospect like Luck would mean that the Bills would have succeeded in the most difficult and most important step in building a Super Bowl winner. (Getting the elite QB.) Elite quarterbacks can be found later in the draft, but players like Brady (or even Brees) are the exception. If a quarterback is elite, and is known by NFL GMs to be elite, he will be taken very, very early in the draft. Taking a quarterback later on means that you are either gambling on getting lucky, or else that you're gambling on your front office having seen something in the quarterback that other front offices missed. This is a case where it's worth paying a very high price to get a safe + high ceiling pick (such as Luck); because a bust or a player with a low ceiling implies the failure of the entire plan to win the Super Bowl. (Meaning, that you're almost certainly not going to win the SB until you somehow acquire an elite QB.) You can afford to take risks at other positions far, far more than you can afford them at QB. Once you have your elite quarterback, you obviously need to surround him with talent. I don't like the idea of getting him killed behind an inept OL any more than you do. I'd hoped that the Bills would use their second round pick on a RT in the upcoming draft. I realize that they'd probably have to trade that away as part of the price for moving up in the draft to take Luck. (That's one of the reasons why draft position is so critical: if we drafted first overall, we could take Luck without giving up the 2nd round RT.) But even assuming the BIlls would have to give up that second round pick (among other things) as part of the price of taking Luck, it would still be a price well worth paying. Ideally, Luck would sit on the bench and learn during his rookie year, much like Carson Palmer with the Bengals. That would buy the Bills an extra year with which to get the OL problems--especially at RT--straightened out before throwing Luck to the wolves. Even if Luck did experience some OL problems early on, I don't think those problems would kill his development. That said, addressing the OL would be my most urgent priority once I'd obtained my quarterback of the future. Getting your QB killed can't possibly produce good long-term effects. Once the elite quarterback was in place, the Bills could go back to a standard-issue effort to increase the team's level of talent. The goal would still be to add elite players at positions that were more critical as opposed to positions that were less so. But with the most critical position already filled by an elite player, some of that pressure would be reduced. For example, suppose the quarterback's entire offensive supporting cast consisted of guys who were reasonably good, but not great. Bell at LT, Steve Johnson as #1 WR, Fred Jackson at RB: guys like that. Those circumstances wouldn't be all that much different than those Brady encountered when the Patriots first won the Super Bowl. And Brady produced! An elite QB can lift the entire offense, assuming the guys around him are decent to good. You'd obviously need a core of a few good-to-elite players to lift the play of your defense. You'd want at least two guys in your front-7 who'd elevate the level of your pass rush, a good, strong NT to clog up the middle, a shutdown CB: stuff like that. The BIlls have some of that already. With the addition of a couple of elite pass rushers, the defense would be well on its way to becoming top-10. If the Bills got the elite QB + the two elite pass rushers + a solid RT + a decent LB or two, they'd be well on their way to being a serious threat to win the Super Bowl. Becoming a serious threat to win the Super Bowl is the work of more than just one offseason. The Bills should get the hardest part--the elite QB--out of the way now, or whenever Luck declares. Elite pass rushers can be added with first round picks in future drafts. Second and third round picks can be used on LBs, a RT, and whichever other positions that need to be solidified to eliminate the team's current holes.

My initial response was based on irritation that you'd defended Tom (a standard-issue troll and bully with nothing of value to say) while you'd gratuitously attacked me in the process. Upon further reflection, I realized that just because you'd acted like a bonehead in that instance, does not necessarily justify me in calling you a bonehead in general.

You very obviously don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about. (Not that that should stop you from voicing an opinion.) I've been very underwhelmed with the intelligence of Tom's posts lately. Anything statistics-related he's written has been an absolutely joke, and that's what he supposedly does for a living. Football is his hobby, so his level of intellectual rigor is even less. He made a true statement (our seventh round pick, Steve Johnson, is doing well) in order to make an idiotic implication (that draft position does not matter). If his point was correct, a standard-issue GM would be willing to trade the first overall pick, straight-up, for a seventh rounder. You and I both know that's not the case. So stop defending blatant stupidity just because Tom is your friend, and actually look at the relative merits of the points being made before chiming in with your own opinion. Thank you.

In this game, I noticed some throws where Fitz would have had to put the ball in a perfect spot to be successful. I can't recall his being successful on one of them. The throw would be a little behind the player, or to the player's left when it needed to be to his right; or would otherwise be a little off. Later in the game, Fitz attained success--but it was success based on making relatively straightforward throws to guys that were open. Fitz deserves credit for identifying the right players to throw to, looking off the safeties in order to get guys open, and making the right reads. But I don't recall seeing any "he put the ball exactly where it had to be" type throws today. Fitz had a good game today, and did a good job of taking advantage of the Bengals' depleted secondary. He's a solid starter. But what he is specifically not is an elite quarterback. If your goal is to go 8-8 each year, with the occasional year where you go 10-6 and get eliminated in the wild card or divisional round of the playoffs, having a solid but unspectacular quarterback is perfectly fine. But if you want to win the Super Bowl, your odds of doing so increase dramatically if you have a franchise QB under center. Opportunities to get franchise QBs are very rare. Most NFL teams don't have a quarterback who can consistently put the ball into tight places/make the perfect throw, while doing a good job of reading defenses, processing information quickly, and overall being a complete player. If the Bills want to be one of the few teams with a guy like that--rather than one of the many teams without one--they're going to need to take full advantage of the chance to add someone like that to the team. Every season starts with 32 teams hoping for a Super Bowl win, and ends with 31 teams coming away disappointed. If the Bills want to be that one team out of 32 that's actually successful, they're going to have to do something to separate themselves from the other 31 teams. If you're getting consistently elite-level play from your quarterback, that separates you from most other teams right there.

Simon wasn't criticizing you for your opinions. He and other are annoyed by the fact that you simply express unsupported opinions, and attack those who disagree with them. You claim to do your share of in-depth posts, but I can't recall having seen any. If you have nothing of substance to contribute to a discussion, at least be respectful of those that do.

Yes, you are still being a moron. What else is new?

We may also have the option of trading up to get Luck. For that to happen, one of two things would need to occur: 1) If Carolina still felt confident in Clausen, they might be willing to trade away the Luck pick. 2) If Carolina felt really good about some other quarterback--such as Mallett--they might reason that Mallett + draft picks > Luck. They'd be wrong, but there's a reasonable chance of them thinking that. I realize that trading up from (say) 5th overall to 1st overall is very, very expensive in terms of draft picks. But if paying that price gets you a quarterback who's somewhere in between Matt Ryan and Peyton Manning, you pay that price. Period.

A first round pick is like a raffle ticket with a 1:2 chance of winning. (The exact odds depend on where in the first round you draft.) A seventh round pick is like a raffle ticket with 1:50 odds. Yes, it's possible to point to some late round success story, such as Johnson, and say, "Look! You don't need draft position! Look how well this seventh round pick did!" That "insight"--if that's what you want to call it--represents your contribution to this thread. Well that, and your name-calling. You're well above your usual posting quality, but still very, very far from actually making a valid point.

This.

With a little Luck, there will be an elite player available when the Bills pick. But not every year is a Bruce Smith year. Some years are Mario Williams years. Mario Williams is a very solid player at one of the four hardest-to-fill positions (QB, RDE, LT, and CB). Meanwhile, the Bills have often been in the 8 - 12 range, and have contented themselves with players like Donte Whitner, Aaron Maybin, and Marshawn Lynch. At this point, the main effect that winning more games would have is to push the Bills out of that portion of the draft where the most coveted, best players are generally found. Instead of getting a very solid player at a premium position--such as a Mario Williams--they could be forced to compromise somewhere. Maybe the guy plays a less premium position (think Spiller and Wood), maybe he's less talented than the best available (think Losman and McCargo), or maybe he's a mediocre player at a non-premium position (Donte Whitner). Year after year the Bills continue to use their first round picks to add guys like that to the team. Year after year, they remain mired in mediocrity. At some point, that mediocrity has to change. You change it by adding one elite player at a time. The Bills are a lot more likely to get an elite player at a premium position if they pick in the top-3 than if they pick in the 10 - 15 range.

This.

Posts like the above are why I'm delighted that the Senator has placed me on his ignore list. He brings nothing to the discussions in which he participates, beyond insults for those who disagree with him. Better draft position has value, for reasons I think should be glaringly obvious. (Anyone who thinks the 32nd overall pick has the same value as the first overall pick is probably not very familiar with the NFL draft.) Increasing your players' collective confidence also has value. Winning games is one way to do that. My personal approach would be to get the early draft pick/talented player this year, and worry about increasing confidence through winning games in subsequent years. Others feel that confidence needs to be increased now, regardless of the effect the extra wins would have on the team's draft position. It's a question that can intelligently be argued either way. Unfortunately, some posters, such as the Senator, evidently prefer name-calling to intelligent discussion. Possibly because they are far better suited to the former than to the latter.

Quite frankly, I saw more intellectual merit in his one post than I've seen in the most recent hundred posts I've read from you. The Bills need more talent. The draft is the main source of new talent. Early picks are worth considerably more than later picks. Adding an elite player with a top-3 pick would be a lot better for the long-term future of this team than would a Jauron-like 7-9 season.

One of the easiest mistakes to make--even for professional talent evaluators--is to overvalue a quarterback's physical traits. You want a quarterback who can read defenses, who can see multiple options quickly, who throws the ball accurately, and who has a strong passion for the game of football. I doubt that any of those things could be said about JaMarcus Russell. Consider McShay's quote: "[Russell's] footwork for such a big quarterback was surprising. He was nimble in his dropbacks, rolling out and throwing on the run. The ball just explodes out of his hands." None of that implies that Russell was particularly impressive on any of the traits I mentioned above. A franchise quarterback is someone who's very strong on the above-mentioned traits (accuracy, reading defenses, etc.) and who, ideally, can hit his receivers in perfect stride. In answer to your question, that's what a franchise quarterback looks like, at least to me. Obviously there's no guarantee that a guy like that will work out, any more than picking a non-quarterback will give you a guaranteed success either. There's no such thing as a guarantee in the NFL draft.

The sentiment of "Brady or bust" is not necessarily as absurd as it might initially appear. If the Bills intended to win a Super Bowl, they almost have to have a franchise-caliber QB. Opportunities to acquire such players are very rare. If you don't have a franchise quarterback and there's one available, you take him. Period.

Fitz's stats are indeed solid. But with Gailey as head coach or offensive coordinator, guys like Jay Fielder and Tyler Thigpen also put up some very good stats. The way Gailey does this is with a one read offense: the quarterback knows the throw he's going to make before the ball is snapped, and throws it almost immediately after the snap. It's a good way of making both the quarterback and the offensive line look better than they really are. Fitz is a solid player, but does not look to be a franchise-caliber quarterback.

The final score of that game was Ravens 20, Ravens 13. After the game, a dejected John Harbaugh was asked to comment. "I feel like we beat ourselves today," he said. "Missed opportunities, blown assignments, poor execution. We feel like we're every bit as good as the team that beat us. Unfortunately, the scoreboard said otherwise." "This is the sort of game where you really have to look inside yourself to understand what happened," said quarterback Joe Flacco. "Anyone on this team who wants to know what went wrong should look in the mirror."

I'll begin by addressing your bolded text. In another post, I looked at the drafting record of Bill Polian. During his time with the Bills, Panthers, and Colts, he's had four picks in the top-5 overall. He used those picks on Bruce Smith (first overall), Kerry Collins (5th overall), Peyton Manning (1st overall), and Edgerrin James (4th overall). He had nine first round picks in the 21 - 32 range. Those were used on Henry Jones, John Fina, Tyrone Poole, Rob Morris, Reggie Wayne, Dallas Clark, Marlin Jackson, Joseph Addai, and Anthony Gonzalez. I'd argue that the four players in the first group are, collectively, worth significantly more than the nine players in the second. Polian got a lot more value out of his picks early in the first round than he did out of his later picks. Your point about confidence is well-taken. But let's say you have some rookie player who hasn't yet proven anything in the NFL. Sure, that player will be worried about whether the team wins or loses. But he's also going to be worried about whether he's good enough to contribute and hold his own in the NFL. Once he goes out there and starts making plays, that's going to give him the confidence that, yes, he belongs. He won't necessarily feel a ton of confidence in the team as a whole with its 0-8 record, but at least he'll start to feel more confidence in himself. As for players feeling confidence in the team as a whole--that's something that can come gradually. Obviously, the Colts probably didn't have much confidence in the team as a whole back in 1997; which is why the Colts were able to draft first overall in the '98 draft. Once Manning arrived, his presence and actions significantly contributed to an overall increase in team confidence. By the same token, the increase in confidence the Bills experienced in the mid-to-late '80s had a lot to do with the presence of guys like Jim Kelly, Bruce Smith, and others on the roster.

I did not make my case on the basis of guarantees of anything. The first pick of the first round is not a guaranteed success, any more than the last pick of the seventh round is guaranteed to be a failure. But on average, players tend to do better the earlier they are picked. From the perspective of a player, I agree he has to adopt an adamant attitude about winning. Once you lose that, it's hard to get that back. You could probably say the same thing about the coaching staff. But the general manager needs to be less . . . intense about the short-term. To use a military analogy, players are like soldiers trained to hold their ground no matter what the cost. Above all, they are taught to never run away, never show cowardice, never to avoid combat. Soldiers need to have that kind of intense desire in them, because the desire to run away to safety is so strong. But a general needs to take a more bird's-eye view of the situation. There will be times when a good general will order a retreat to achieve some larger strategic goal. A soldier could say, "you fight to conquer land!" implying that a retreat is never a good idea. But that implication would be wrong. This is a clear case where the Bills need to lose more games today in order to win more games tomorrow. It's a case of a general ordering a retreat, even though the soldiers in question have been indoctrinated to never give an inch of ground to the enemy. Obviously, the GM can't tell his coaches and players to deliberately start losing games. But he can choose personnel in a way that would avoid too many quick-fix, aging veteran players--the kind of players who help you win over the short-run without doing much to help in the long-term.

Your example proves exactly the opposite point. Had the Chargers picked first overall instead of second, they could have had Peyton Manning.