Orton's Arm

I agree 100% with what you've written about Fitz! He's clearly playing the game at a much higher level than I'd thought he could. If he keeps this up, I'll have to start thinking about changing my screen name! I'd just like to add to what you've written about the offensive line. Bell is playing much better football this season than he did last year. He's also reached the point where he can play all the snaps, instead of being a rotational player as he'd been earlier in the season. (Early in the season, he was a little out of shape because of the injury.) At RT, getting Green off the field worked wonders right there. Add to that the fact that Green's replacement--Howard--had a good game. Fitz clearly makes the OL look better than it is. At the same time, the line is a lot better now than it had been at the beginning of the season--especially at the tackle positions. As scary as it is to say, the Bills have a guy who's coaching like a real offensive coordinator, a guy who's playing as though he's a real quarterback, an offensive line that (for the most part) is playing like a real line, and receivers that are playing like real receivers. Not too shabby an improvement over a few weeks ago!

I disagree with the above. If you talk with someone who has mastered something--truly mastered it on a deep level--that person will likely tell you that his or her focus is on constant improvement. The focus is on identifying and correcting weaknesses or flaws, and gradually learning to perform at an increasingly high level. Win or lose, the person will be focused on the things he or she did well, the mistakes that could have been corrected, and the overall plan for improvement. The Bills--at least on offense--took a major step in that direction. We got good play from both OTs, which isn't something we would necessarily have anticipated a few weeks ago. Fitzpatrick is playing at a much higher level than he's played before. Steve Johnson looks like a real starting receiver. Fred Jackson had another very good game, but we as Bills fans almost take him for granted. This team is still a ways away from being good. It needs a defensive coordinator, replacements at most defensive front seven positions, improvement at safety, and a little more talent on offense. But in a game no one expected the Bills to win, they played a lot better than expected. That's something to celebrate. As for the loss--it will improve their draft position. Given that Luck will probably stay in school, I would expect the Bills to use the pick on a defensive front seven player. If we add an elite difference maker at DL or LB with a top-5 pick, and if there's an overall infusion of talent, next year's team will be a lot better than this one. If there's no football next year, the Bills could experience two consecutive years of picking very early! With that kind of talent infusion, the team will start winning more games! More wins will mean that the culture of losing will gradually change. Especially because whichever players are most associated with that culture can be replaced in the next two drafts.

I'm glad you've started this up again! I agree that we need an upgrade at SS. I don't even think Whitner's fans--assuming he has any left after today--argue that that's a strong point of his. I wouldn't mind seeing George Wilson out there again. Not that he's necessarily the long-term answer, but he'd probably be an upgrade. I'm glad to hear that Bell played well enough today to earn your mark of approval. Hopefully that will continue, because having one less hole to worry about would be huge! I can't quite make heads or tails of Fitz. He's playing a lot better than I'd expected, and like you I take my hat off to him for what he achieved today.

Your heart/lung system delivers vital oxygen to your cells. If your heart fails your blood doesn't move, which means your cells don't get oxygen, which means they die. If your lungs fail your cells won't get oxygen either because it won't be coming into your system. An argument about whether a heart or lungs are more important would be kind of silly, because you really do need to have both! The dichotomy between a quarterback and an offensive line is similar. No quarterback can succeed without at least some pass protection. But if you provide good pass protection to a mediocre quarterback, the potential benefit of that pass protection is largely squandered. Look at the Ravens of the early 2000s. They had Jon Ogden at LT--a guy who played at a Hall of Fame level. But the Ravens didn't have Hall of Fame level offenses--or anything even remotely close--due primarily to the lack of talent at the QB position. Think of how much better those offenses could have been if they'd had Kurt Warner instead of Trent Dilfer or Elvis Grbac! Good pass protection + good QB play + good receiving threats = a good passing game. Of those three elements, the first two are the most essential.

Your personal attack here is uncalled-for, and has no place in this discussion. If you still dispute the main points I made in the statistics discussion, I suggest you read this article.

Same guy. John McCain came in second in the presidential election. I don't see the Steelers lining up to visit him at his home. So it works both ways.

One could make the argument that being a Buffalonian is itself something of an exercise in self-flagellation. The long winters, the lousy economy and, above all, the state government--these are not things that bring tears of joy to most people's eyes. (Except, of course, for the many, many recipients of the state's extremely generous, taxpayer-funded largess.) The team Nix inherited had a number of needs. Of its defensive front seven players, only Kyle Williams and Poz represent long-term answers. I can't fault him for using his second and third round picks on an effort to fix that problem. Even Spiller--who didn't address a real need--at least was rated significantly higher than the other players available when the Bills picked. I'm not trying to find fault with Nix here. But that being said, it's not like he's seriously addressed the offensive line. He overpaid for a right tackle the Raiders no longer wanted. He used a fifth round pick on Wang. He signed some guys released by their previous teams. Maybe he'll get lucky, and one of those efforts will result in a long-term solid starter on the OL. According to one ranking I saw, the Bills currently have the worst offensive line in the league. That is not Nix's fault, but is the result of two decades of neglect, poor player selection, and general front office incompetence. That being said, Nix is unlikely to fix the problem with fifth round picks and other teams' castoffs. Building the line with players like that is what got us into this mess in the first place. The team Nix inherited was more than an off-season or two away from having its holes filled. Nix neglected the offensive line in order to focus on other needs. Over the short-term, that's acceptable. But over the next two years or so, he does need to make a serious effort to get the line fixed.

I read through the thread to which you linked. My sense is that most Jaguars' fans have given up on Garrard. The prevailing wisdom there seems to be that Edwards can't be worse than Garrard, and might (and probably is) better. Even in the Titans game, without knowing much of the playbook or having practiced with the first stringers, they saw him do things Garrard didn't do. It's also been pointed out that he's only 26, and has prototypical QB size (6'4", 230). Finally, there's the sense that Trent couldn't really show what he could do in Buffalo due to the lack of an offensive line, changes in coordinators, being thrown to the wolves too early instead of getting time to develop, and overall organizational dysfunctionality. Most Jaguars fans, however, seem to think that their QB of the future should come from the draft, with Edwards playing the role of the bridge quarterback while the rookie first rounder sits and learns. But a significant minority is willing to entertain the notion that Edwards is the long-term answer.

The problem with taking Mallet this year is that if the Bills do that, they won't take Luck next year even if he's available. No one is going to use back-to-back first round picks on QBs unless there's a change in the front office--and usually not even then. If there isn't a quarterback the Bills feel comfortable with, they should draft some other position. But it's not like Mallet is the only other quarterback out there. National Scouting Service--used by almost two dozen NFL teams--rated Ponder and Locker as the two best QBs for the 2011 draft. National doesn't rate underclassmen, so Luck and Mallet weren't included. Click here for the 25 best seniors as determined by National. It's felt that Locker's high rating is due to his physical attributes, whereas Ponder is the more NFL-ready. Recall that back in the late '90s, Peyton Manning was described as more "NFL-ready" than Ryan Leaf, but that Leaf had the better physical traits. I'm not saying this is another Manning/Leaf situation--but I do think that proving yourself as a pocket passer at the college level is more important than arm strength or other physical attributes. Suppose the Bills would feel comfortable with Ponder, but would prefer Luck. Should they draft Ponder in 2011, or should they draft a non-QB while waiting for 2012 for Luck to come out? Part of the answer to that depends on whether there will be a 2011 season. If not, and if the Bills get the first overall pick in 2011, I think there'd be no way for this team to avoid getting Luck if that's the player they most want. If there is a 2011 season, the Bills would have to think about whether to deliberately tank the season in order to get Luck. If they're not willing to do that, and if they think they will improve their record from this season, they should probably take Ponder in this year's draft. Especially if there's a chance to trade down a little and still get him.

You've raised what may well be a fair point. I guess someone should look at the games Fitz started last season and compare them to the ones Edwards started. Was there a difference in the quality of defenses? Did the offensive line seem to be doing a better job of pass protecting? I still think Edwards needs to learn to throw to intermediate and deep targets more often, or else he won't maximize whatever potential he has at QB. On the other hand, there must be things he does better than Fitz, or else he wouldn't have won the quarterback competition to open the 2010 season. But regardless of whether Trent or Fitz is the better QB, the Bills definitely need to add a franchise QB if they possibly can.

The bad defense argument is completely valid: it stands to reason that any quarterback's stats will look better after facing a few bad defenses than a few good ones. Comparing Trent's stats from this year (against two of the best pass defenses in the league) to Fitz's (who faced two of the worst pass defenses in the league) isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. As for last season, Trent averaged 6.4 yards per pass attempt, and had a rating of 73.8. Fitzpatrick averaged 6.3 yards per pass attempt, and had a rating of 69.7. I agree that last year's offense seemed to function more effectively when Fitz was under center, because he was at least a threat to throw longer than you'd typically expect from Trent. Sometimes taking a few shots down field will help open things up, even if many of the throws are inaccurate passes that fall incomplete. If Trent could learn to do that too, he'd be a better quarterback than he is now. That said, I don't regard either quarterback as a long-term answer.

As a fourth year player, Fitzpatrick had twelve starts with the Bengals. Once he hit free agency, NFL GMs didn't show any interest in him . . . except as a backup. That datum alone doesn't prove he's no more than a backup caliber player. But those who think he's the long-term answer at QB would do well to explain what they see in him that NFL GMs around the league didn't see. Your statement that the phrase "prevent defense" is a stupid one is simply false. When a team has an overwhelming lead, defenses will often focus on preventing the big gain, even if it means allowing the underneath stuff. I also noted that you didn't provide any explanation as to why you thought the phrase "prevent defense" is stupid which, at very least, is not conducive to discussion.

True, that. Moreover, two of his three games this season have been against some of the very worst pass defenses in the league. Of his last two games last season, one was against Indy's backups. If you look at Fitz's stats from the 2009 season, and compare them straight-up to Trent's statistics from that same year, Trent's stats are slightly better. The appearance of improvement over the last five games is based on the fact that he's played against backups, lousy pass defenses, and has received plenty of garbage time. Garbage time, I might add, against defenses which are lousy even when not in prevent mode. Of course his stats will look better under those circumstances! What quarterback's stats wouldn't? Fitz is a good option at backup, but he isn't the successor to Jim Kelly.

Point taken. But I still think that what the Raiders are doing makes sense, at least for a rebuilding team. It's like putting a sign on your car that reads, "For Sale: Price Negotiable." There's nothing to stop someone from offering to buy your car even with no "for sale" sign on it. If the price you were offered was high enough, you'd probably accept. But you're likely to get more offers once other people realize you're looking to sell.

Even a blind squirrel will sometimes find a nut. For a rebuilding team--such as the Bills or Raiders--putting the entire roster on the trading block makes a certain amount of sense. Of course, nothing obligates you to accept any given trade offer.

You ask whether Losman and Edwards would have had good careers had they been surrounded with better supporting casts. That's a question well worth asking. Losman didn't prove a whole lot as a college QB. However, his big arm, fast feet, and good long ball were tempting to some NFL scouts. Dave Wannestadt, on the other hand, observed that he wouldn't have drafted Losman with the last pick of the seventh round. During the second half of the 2006 season, Losman was surrounded by a good supporting cast. His offensive line was anchored by Jason Peters at LT; and the line as a whole did a reasonable job in pass protection. Even so, the offense had to be considerably simplified to accommodate Losman's mental limitations. He had some big plays that year, including a number of long bombs to Lee Evans. But what he didn't do was demonstrate the ability to lead the offense down the field on many-play, "death by a thousand small cuts" type drives. Losman failed because of his mental limitations, and he brought those mental limitations with him to the NFL. Edwards also didn't prove a whole lot in college; in large part because his offensive supporting cast was so horrendous. It's hard to work your way to your third or fourth read when the pass rush arrives almost instantly. Edwards was available in the third round because of the absence of a solid college track record. Sure, Marv told us the Bills had him rated as a first round QB. So you have to decide whether to believe Marv's judgment--or the judgment of the NFL GMs who passed over Edwards in the first and second rounds. An average third round QB isn't going to amount to much--perhaps a decent backup if all goes well. Maybe Edwards could have had a successful career with better pass protection, but the odds would have been heavily against him. I'm open to the possibility that a bad supporting cast/overall situation might seriously jeopardize a quarterback's future. But Losman in particular--and probably Edwards as well--would have failed, regardless of the quality of their supporting casts. Obviously, if you take a QB early, and if your team has offensive line problems, you should focus on getting those problems fixed as quickly and effectively as possible. A QB in the first round (if there's one there worth taking) followed by a RT in the second round, seems like a good approach for the Bills' 2011 draft.

I disagree. Opportunities to draft franchise quarterbacks are extremely rare. If Bill Polian had eschewed the chance to draft Peyton Manning, how many future opportunities at a player like that would he have had? If you don't have a franchise quarterback, and if there's one there, you take him. Period. You have to. If the problem you're trying to avoid is having your expensive franchise QB get killed behind an inadequate OL, there are things you can do to prevent that. Things which don't require you to make the mistake of passing up a franchise QB when your team needs one. There's nothing in the NFL rule book which requires you to start a rookie QB from his very first day. The Bengals drafted Carson Palmer first overall; and yet he was the third string quarterback during his entire rookie year. That's exactly what all teams should do with their rookie QBs. The Bills could draft a quarterback in round 1 of 2011; and then follow that up with an offensive lineman in round 2. Perhaps even another OL in round 3. They'd sit the first round QB his rookie year. Then in 2011, they could use a first round pick on another OL in round 1 of 2012, if there was a sufficiently good one available at a position of need. By the time this quarterback took the field, the pass protection would have been significantly upgraded over the travesty we see now, and he would have had over a full year to learn the offense and its terminology.

While Jake Long contributed a lot his rookie season, there was no way they would have even flirted with 11-5 had it not been for the addition of Chad Pennington. Pennington gave them savvy, solid veteran play from the QB position. However, Pennington only lasted a year or two. At least in previous seasons, Henne was decent but not special. The Dolphins took a step backwards in the quality of their quarterback play. Coincidentally, their record slipped as well--there were no more 11-5 seasons for them after that initial year of Pennington.

Just to add to what you've written: last season, getting slightly less than half the playing time, Trent Edwards had a 73.8 rating and averaged 6.4 yards per pass attempt. Fitz also had about half the playing time last season, and had the same offensive coordinator and supporting cast as Edwards. He had a 69.7 QB rating and 6.3 yards per attempt. At least statistically, Fitz didn't outplay a guy we just released. This year his numbers have been a lot better. But someone pointed out that two of the three defenses he faced were worse than the Bills' defense. Also, of the seven TDs scored over the last three weeks, three were in garbage time. Getting garbage time TDs against defenses which are lousy even when not in prevent mode isn't enough to cancel out last year's failure to get better stats than Edwards. Fitzpatrick is a good backup QB, but isn't the long-term answer. If the Bills have the chance to add a franchise QB in the 2011 draft, they have to pull the trigger. Opportunities like that are very rare.

That second paragraph sounds like it really could be true.

I tend to agree with your overall point that the odds of Brohm turning into a franchise QB are very slim. I personally would like to see the Bills use their first round pick on a QB in 2011, assuming there's a guy worth taking with our pick. But that said, I'd like to take a closer look at the whole NFL GMs' angle. Had Brohm come out after his junior year, he likely would have been a top 10 pick. His draft stock dropped a little during his senior season, but he was still picked very early in the second round. So that sounds like potential! During Brohm's rookie year, GMs across the league were able to see how the rookie player did in his first preseason. I don't know how much of a data point that is, because you'd expect a rookie quarterback to look lousy in that first preseason. Their next opportunity to gather information about Brohm was in his second preseason--where he looked better than in his first preseason, but not, perhaps, as good as Flynn. Their third opportunity to gather information about him was when the Packers released him. That third event was more of a "they don't want him, so why should we?" thing than it was anything based on direct observations of his play. So the only direct and [/i] meaningful observation NFL GMs had of Brohm that was post-college, and pre-Buffalo, was his second preseason in Green Bay. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that he got one game's worth of snaps during that preseason. Well . . . even a good quarterback can still have a bad game. It's also worth noting that there were some good plays in that second preseason--albeit not as many as Flynn had. I strongly suspect that Brohm cleared waivers mainly because of the "they don't want him, why should we?" thing, with his disappointing performance in that second preseason serving to reinforce that perspective. Since the draft, what have we really learned about Brohm? We learned that the Packers' coaching staff didn't consider him as good as Aaron Rogers or Matt Flynn. More disturbingly, we learned that the Bills' coaching staff didn't (at least initially) consider him as good as Trent Edwards or Ryan Fitzpatrick. On the plus side, Kurt Warner was initially third on the Rams' depth chart; so it's not like a team's judgment is always perfect. But I realize Kurt Warner stories are very rare. Another point in Brohm's favor is that he looked pretty good in his preseason work with the Bills. One would think that would go a long way towards canceling out the concerns that arose from some of his preseason work with the Packers. It's also worth noting that the Bills kept Fred Jackson on the bench in order to start Anthony Thomas. Only after both Lynch and Thomas got hurt did Fred Jackson receive the chance to prove himself in actual games. I'll grant that was with a previous coaching staff. But that goes to show that just because a coaching staff doesn't give a guy any opportunities, doesn't necessarily mean you should write him off. So why not give Brohm that chance too? It may only have a 1% chance of letting us find our franchise QB. But we have a 0% chance of finding our franchise QB between now and the end of the season if Fitz takes all the snaps.

I tend to put the blame for the 2006 draft on Marv. You make the point that most of the scouting had been done prior to Marv's arrival in January of 2006. But the general manager's job largely consists of assimilating the scouting reports he's provided, and developing a gut feel reaction for each of the players under consideration. Three months seems like enough time to do a pretty solid job of that--especially for the first round picks. Besides that, it's not as though he replaced the scouting staff after the 2006 draft was over. So if the problem with the 2006 draft was bad scouting, Marv still deserves blame for having failed to upgrade the scouts at any point during his time as GM. Only one success story emerged from the 2006 draft: Kyle Williams. Brad Butler could have been a success story had he not prematurely retired. As for Whitner: he's typically good in run support and good at tackling; but not a guy you'd want in one-on-one coverage against a good tight end. Squandering the eighth overall pick on a player with his limitations was among the first and greatest mistakes of Marv's regime. Likewise, only one success story emerged from the 2007 draft: Poz. And even there it was only a partial success. Whitner, Poz, and Kyle Williams aren't a lot to show for Marv's two drafts as GM. It's a little early to evaluate the 2008 draft. McKelvin will need to become a consistent starter and a shutdown corner for him to be considered a success story. He also needs to avoid going first-contract-and-out; though if he does go first-contract-and-out the blame will hardly be Marv's. The other two potential success stories from that draft are Bell and Steve Johnson; though it's far too early to determine what kinds of careers they'll have. In a few years it should be clearer whether the 2008 draft was a success or a failure. But to the degree that it was either, I'm not sure how much of the credit or blame should go to Marv. That draft didn't happen on his watch. Those who did the scouting for the 2008 draft had been hired before Marv's time as GM. The only real indirect influence he had on the 2008 draft was the selection of Jauron as head coach.

Now that was a solid post! I couldn't agree more: if you need a franchise QB, your odds of getting one outside the first round are slim. If you have a Trent Dilfer at quarterback, you'd better hope your defense and offensive line are as good as the ones the Ravens had back in 2000. Because if they're not, you're not coming away with a Super Bowl ring.

This is a very good point! Thanks for taking the time to compile those stats. I didn't realize how much of Fitz's success (including 3/7 of the TDs over the last three weeks) was based on garbage time.

It's worth bearing in mind that the New England and Jaguars pass defenses aren't very good right now. Fitz isn't a particularly accurate or consistent quarterback. One he plays against some better defenses, his numbers won't look as shiny as they do now. That said, I admire his willingness to take chances and throw the ball downfield. There will also be good throws mixed in with the bad. Overall, his level of play seems about right for a backup QB.