Orton's Arm

Your post brings up some interesting questions. To what extent do the actions of the NFL's 32 teams resemble a free market? To what extent should the NFL's individual teams resemble individual participants in a free market? If the individual teams within the NFL truly acted like participants in a free market, there would be no salary cap and no players' union. Whenever two teams played, the teams would negotiate which rules set to use. Should they use college rules, NFL rules, Arena Football rules, etc.? The two teams would also negotiate how to divvy up the revenue from the ticket sales and concessions, etc. For better or worse, it was decided that allowing that much variation would detract from the fan experience. As a fan, I know that if two NFL teams play each other, they'll use the NFL rules set; and will abide by other restrictions the NFL has created. (No steroid use, for example; as well as bans on other performance-enhancing substances.) I also know that both teams will (presumably) compete to win, instead of having one team simply bribe the owner of the other team to throw the game. (As could easily happen under a pure free market.) Individual NFL owners surrendered a portion of the freedom because they knew that, only by empowering the NFL Commissioner to enforce certain basic standards, could the quality and integrity of the game be guaranteed. Minimal player conduct policies are part of the standards the NFL tries to enforce. And rightly so. If OJ Simpson was thirty years younger, I wouldn't want him making millions off the NFL. Nor, I'm sure, would a lot of other fans. Players get suspended for things all the time--Lynch being a case in point. Does Vick deserve a permanent suspension?

A case could be made for trading away Lee Evans . . . depending on the price we could get for him. The Bills are a rebuilding team. The next two years (possibly more) of Evans' play will be useless to this team because it won't be a serious threat to advance in the playoffs either with or without Lee Evans. If we hold onto him, it should be for what he will offer us three or more years down the road. Evans is in his seventh year in the NFL, so the question is: how much gas will he have left in the tank after he's been around ten years? There will still be some value left, but not nearly as much as there is now. A draft pick, on the other hand, will be useless to us this year, will experience his rookie year next year, but will presumably start to come into his own the year after that. Lee Evans gives us value now. The draft pick gives us value later. Value now won't help us advance in the playoffs (the Bills are too far away for that!), and may actually hurt the team's draft position by producing a few meaningless wins. But value later--which is what the draft pick provides--could significantly benefit this team! I just want to see him traded away for significantly more than the fourth rounder we got for Marshawn.

You've made some good points, and have expressed yourself well. I'll address most of the issues you've raised. 1) Should it be up to the NFL as a whole, or up to the 32 team owners individually, to decide if Vick plays? That is a thorny question, and could be approached from a lot of different angles. The only observation I have here is that if it is considered undesirable for Vick to play (either for moral reasons or to protect the image of the league), having the NFL as a whole block him from playing would be a lot more effective than hoping all 32 team owners each individually decide not to sign him. The NFL already has the power to suspend players; so it is not as though permanently barring Vick from playing would radically alter the fundamental calculus of league versus owners. 2) Assuming, however, that team owners are given the option of signing Vick, at least one of them will presumably exercise that option unless a) it become clear Vick has lost his touch, or b) the fans choose to exert business pressure on the owner to prevent the signing. In the absence of that fan pressure, there will always be at least a few owners willing to give "another chance" to any given player no matter what he's done off the field. 3) Should the fans exert financial pressure on team owners to discourage them from signing players like Vick? Like you pointed out in your post, football is about entertainment. I personally find it more entertaining to root for a team when I like and can relate to the players. If an owner gathered up 52 thugs, I could still root for the laundry I suppose. But rooting for the laundry plus the players is a more powerful emotion than rooting for laundry alone. There is also the principle involved. Players' paychecks ultimately come from the fans: from the expensive tickets, even more expensive personal seating licenses, concessions that make movie theater concessions seem like a thrifty, low-budget alternative in comparison, sales of jerseys and other NFL gear, and a host of other sources. Those other sources even include taxpayer dollars for new stadiums and renovations to existing stadiums. As fans, we have to ask ourselves, "Do we want to spend our hard-earned money to make Michael Vick a millionaire?" For me the answer is clear--I'd rather burn the money in question than have it go into Michael Vick's pocket.

You seem to be conflating two very separate concepts. Concept 1: After a criminal has been punished, his legal rights are restored. (With the exception of pedophiles, obviously.) Concept 2: Private sector employers can and do use information about a person's past history to make hiring decisions. There is no expiration date on that information. That information can include good things "Mr. X graduated from Harvard 40 years ago," or bad things, "Mr. Y raped a woman 40 years ago." A convicted felon who's served his time has the legal right to seek gainful employment. But private sector employers aren't required to hire him. If a man was convicted of stealing money, and if I'm a private sector employer, I'm not going to hire him for a position that requires him to handle money. If a man was convicted of raping a woman, I'm not going to hire him to be a women's counselor. There is nothing immoral about the idea that certain bad actions should be associated with permanent consequences. On the contrary: excessive leniency towards bad behavior can and should be considered immoral. I have no objection to Michael Vick seeking gainful employment. What I do object to is his being given the opportunity to make millions of dollars a year in a very glamorous occupation solely because he happened to get lucky by inheriting good physical traits. If his sprinting speed was a little slower, if his arm strength wasn't as good, where would he be with his life right now?

I completely agree. I don't understand how Trent Edwards could have been good enough to be the Bills' starter one week, and get released just a couple weeks later. Oh, wait. You were talking about another former third round pick who went from starter to being waived in a very small amount of time! Which leads one to wonder: by the end of the season, how many other week one starters will have been released?

Either the current Bills' front office can or can't evaluate talent properly. If it can, we should hope for as many losses as possible in order to feed them high draft picks. The last two times Bill Polian had the first overall pick, he came away with Bruce Smith and Peyton Manning. A good talent evaluator + an early pick = a great chance of a good player. If the Bills' front office can't evaluate talent, we should hope for as many losses as possible so that they get fired and replaced with someone competent that much sooner. The Bills don't have the talent to compete with the best teams in the league. In no way, shape, or form does getting meaningless wins against lower-tier teams help them acquire that needed player talent. On the contrary: you build through the draft; and early draft picks are more valuable than picks later in the first round.

In 2006, the Bills had the chance to use the 8th overall pick on Cutler. Instead they selected Whitner. In 2007, the Bills used the 12th overall pick on Lynch. A few years later, the Broncos traded Cutler away for a couple of first round picks. The Bills traded Lynch away for a 4th rounder and sundry. Both Cutler and Lynch had made the Pro Bowl before being traded. You wouldn't necessarily consider either player to be elite, but both had shown they could play. Lynch had a couple of 1000 yard rushing seasons, and seemed to be doing a solid job in the games in which he was being showcased. You could make the argument that Cutler was better at quarterback than Lynch was at running back. But I don't think that argument fully explains the vast disparity in what each team got for the player it was trading away. The 15th pick of the first round is worth a little more than 1000 points; which means the Broncos got about 2000 points for Cutler. The 15th pick of the 4th round is worth 72 points. Throw in 21 points for that conditional pick (6th round), and Lynch netted the Bills about 100 points--less than 1/20th the value the Broncos got for Cutler. I saw a New York Times article in which a linear regression analysis was done; with the number of wins being the dependent variable, and measurements of pass offense, rushing offense, pass defense, etc. being the independent variables. The model explained about 80% of the total variation in team wins. The model also found that an improvement in passing offense was four times more useful than a statistically equal improvement in rushing offense. The same 4:1 relationship held with respect to pass defense versus rushing defense. The question, "what can you do to improve my passing game or pass defense?" is four times more important than "what can you do to improve my rushing game or rushing defense?". Lynch was pretty good (not great) as a rusher, but only so-so in the passing game. In today's NFL, that just isn't enough to merit very much in a trade. If a player like Spiller is going to justify being picked 9th overall, he's going to have to do more than just improve the Bills' rushing attack. Spiller's contribution as a returner will do little to justify the pick, because as you pointed out the Bills have plenty of good return guys already. If Spiller is going to justify that 9th overall pick, he's going to have to improve the Bills' passing attack. If a RB is asked to stay in and block, it's just as important for him to win his individual battle against some LB or safety as it is for an offensive lineman to win his one-on-one battle. If a RB is asked to be a receiver on a pass play, then his potential contribution is just like that of any other receiver. If he's asked to run a draw play on third and long, in order to punish the defense for over-committing to the pass rush, how well he actually performs on that draw play will determine whether the chains get moved, as well as whether the defense has to hold back a little in future third and long situations. While Thurman Thomas was a better pure runner than Lynch, the real difference between the two becomes even more pronounced when you look at all the other things a running back is supposed to do: pass receiving, blitz pickup, etc. Thurman could pile up all-purpose yards like no one's business, he was very good at blocking blitzers, and was an integral part of the K-gun offense. When John Butler went to San Diego, he used a top 5 pick on LaDanian Tomlinson in hopes of getting the next Thurman Thomas. He ended up getting even more. One can safely assume that LaDanian Tomlinson made an impression on Nix while he was at San Diego; and that Spiller is intended to be our Tomlinson. Obviously, a good passing game requires both a quarterback and an offensive line. The Bills have neither; and did very little to acquire either during this past offseason. If that trend continues, the Bills' rebuilding efforts will fail even if Spiller turns out to be every bit as good as Tomlinson. But if the Bills' problems on the OL and at QB were fixed, having a Thurman-like or Tomlinson-like player in the backfield would be a real help. One's opinion of the Spiller pick depends a lot on one's level of trust in the front office. Do you trust them to acquire the right quarterback and the right offensive linemen? Or do feel those positions will be neglected over the coming years, just as they have been over the last 15 years? Do you think Spiller has the potential to have a Thurman-like career? Or do you see him as just another Antowain Smith/Travis Henry/Willis McGahee/Marshawn Lynch? I have to admit that I'm less optimistic about this front office than I'd been a few months ago. The Cornell Green signing, the Kelsay extension, the Bills' choice of defensive coordinator: these things all reflect badly on the organization and the people running it. I realize no organization is perfect, but it seems like the Bills have made more errors than I would expect at this point from a well-run team.

I think you're implying that he had a lot of influence in the fourth round, which is correct. However, that influence led to more misses than hits. (As one would expect from fourth round picks.) Russell Copeland, WR: had just one season as a starter out of a seven year career. In his second-best season, he had 255 receiving yards. Sean Crocker: never played a down in the NFL. Ken Irvin: 11 year career, including about five years' worth of starts. Decent, not great player. Jamie Nails: three years' worth of starts out of a six year career. Played like a backup. Bobby Collins: started six times during his three year career. Keith Newman: had about 5 or six years of starts in his eight year career. A decent player. Avion Black, WR: never started a game in his three year career, and ended with less than 150 career receiving yards.

There's no question that the Lynch pick was a mistake. Any time you use the 12th overall pick on a player, and are unable to get more than a fourth rounder plus sundry for him just a few years later, that pick was an error. As for the Spiller pick, the Bills have the following drafting history when it comes to RBs. 2001, 2nd round. Travis Henry. Result: failed to provide enough of an upgrade over Antowain Smith to be worth a 2nd rounder. 2003, 1st round. Willis McGahee. Result: failed to provide enough of an upgrade over Travis Henry to be worth a first rounder. 2007, 1st round. Marshawn Lynch. Result: failed to provide enough of an upgrade over Willis McGahee to be worth a first rounder. 2010, 1st round. CJ Spiller. Result: __________________ ? Every running back on that list (sans Spiller) was traded away for significantly less than what we used to draft him. We got a third rounder for Henry, two third rounders for McGahee, and only a fourth rounder + conditional pick for Lynch. There is no question that the Bills' overuse of early picks on running backs has been a significant contributing factor in this team's decade-long legacy of failure. This is not to suggest the Spiller pick is necessarily going to be more of the same. Most analysts had rated Spiller as a significantly better player than the others available when the Bills picked. If those high ratings prove justified, then hopefully Spiller will a) stay on the roster for a long time, b) cause the Bills to resist the temptation of using other high draft picks on RBs for a very long time, and c) be a Thurman Thomas or LaDanian Tomlinson for the offense. If Spiller accomplishes those three things, he will succeed in doing what the litany of other RBs utterly failed to do. He will have justified his draft position.

I'll respond to the bolded statement above. My draft-day philosophy is this: 1. List your team's needs in order, from the most difficult-to-fill position to the easiest-to-fill. 2. With your first round pick, look to see if you can fill your most difficult-to-fill position with your pick. If no players at that position are worthy of being chosen at whichever spot you're drafting, move down to your second most difficult to fill position. Repeat until you select a player worthy of being chosen in that spot. 3. Remember that building a good offensive line is a more important and more urgent task than filling your needs at most other positions. Quarterback is the single most difficult to fill position on the entire team. It's also the most critical. You need look no further than the Arizona Cardinals offense for the difference a good quarterback can make! It's also worth noting that opportunities to draft a franchise quarterback are very rare. If you don't have a franchise quarterback, and an opportunity to draft one comes your way, you have to take it. There is no other choice. Obviously, a quarterback can't accomplish much when he's lying on his back. The times when I've seen Peyton Manning or Tom Brady get shut down were generally due to their offensive lines getting dominated by the other team's defense. Clearly, players like Cornell Green would get dominated even by reasonably good high school defenders. If the Bills use a first round pick on a QB, they could come right back in the second round to grab a RT. There is even the possibility of grabbing an OL in the third, though a very strong argument could also be made for a linebacker at that spot.

The Bills have had the habit of using first round picks on CBs, only to let them go first-contract-and-out. Take a guy like Antoine Winfield for example. He's spent more years with the Vikings than with the Bills. They got more use out of that first round pick than we did! In looking over Indy's first round picks since 2000, I didn't see a single Antoine Winfield story. Not once did they let a successful first round pick leave in the prime of his career. TD drafted Nate Clements just a few years after the Bills took Winfield. Why? Was his plan to have a pair of shutdown corners for many long years to come? Or did he draft Clements as a replacement for Winfield? If the latter, it would imply TD had decided upon the strategy of letting Winfield go first-contract-and-out. The first strategy would have been a lot better than the second. But regardless of whatever TD's intentions may have been, his action was to let Winfield walk. Not only that, but Clements' contract expired under TD's general managership as well. (Levy franchised him for a year, then let him walk.) The value of a first round pick = the player's average level of play * the number of years he plays for your franchise. If your overall strategy causes your first round CBs to spend the first 40% of their careers with you, and the remaining 60% with some other team; then that strategy will reduce by 60% the value you're receiving from your first round picks. The whole point of using a first round pick on a player should be to get a long-term answer at a specific position. If a first round pick goes first-contract-and-out, that pick will have failed in the objective for which it should have been intended. I'll grant that with most of the Bills' first-contract-and-out CBs, the failure was not the result of bad talent evaluation. But good drafting requires more than just good talent evaluation. It requires the general manager to honestly ask, "Where does this player fit in my long-term plan for this franchise?" If the answer to that question is, "He'll be too expensive to keep after his first contract," it's a bad draft pick.

While you've made good points, I strongly disagree with #4. In my book, a successful first round pick is a player who a) plays at a level at or above what you'd expect from his draft slot, and b) contributes a long number of years to your football team. With that said, let's see how many of the Bills' first round picks over the last decade or so have been successful. 2000 Erik Flowers. Result: bust. 2001 Nate Clements. Result: left the Bills after six years. He was a failure because his tenure here was too short. 2002 Mike Williams. Result: bust. 2003 a. Traded for Drew Bledsoe. Result: released after three years, including two and a half very mediocre seasons. b. Willis McGahee. Result: played about three years for the Bills, and then was traded away for a couple third rounders. Not enough value there to justify the pick. 2004 a. Lee Evans. Result: A solid #2 threat and a good deep burner. b. JP Losman. Result: bust 2005 none 2006 a. Donte Whitner. Result: a decent football player just barely able to keep George Wilson on the bench. b. John McCargo. Result: bust. 2007 Marshawn Lynch. Result: a solid running back who has not necessarily lived up to his draft position. 2008 Leodis McKelvin. Result: is developing into a very good CB. Only time will tell if he will go first-contract-and-out, as have so many other Bills' first round CBs. I ended with 2008, because it's too soon to evaluate the more recent picks. As you can see from the above list, there are no clear-cut success stories. You could argue that Lee Evans would have been more successful if he'd had better quarterback play and an offensive line that could keep the QB upright. But even allowing for that, 13th overall still seems a little high for the player we've gotten. Leodis McKelvin could become a clear-cut success story if he remains on the Bills' roster, and if he learns to avoid getting faked out. As for Lynch: if all we can get for him right now is a third round pick, then he is specifically not a success story. The same goes for any other first round pick who can't be traded for more than a third. Compare those drafts to the ones the Colts have had during that time. Peyton Manning was chosen first overall back in '98, so he was drafted a little before the data series begins. But look at the players the Colts have drafted since then. 2000 Rob Morris, LB (28th overall). Result: had about four seasons worth of starts over an eight year career (all with the Colts). Not an outright bust, but clearly didn't live up to his draft position. 2001 Reggie Wayne (30th overall). Result: is in his 9th season as a starter, and is still going strong. A clear-cut success story. 2002 Dwight Freeny, DE (11th overall). Result: another clear-cut success story. 2003 Dallas Clark, TE (24th overall). Result: is going into his eighth year as a starter, and is still going strong. A third clear-cut success story. 2004 none 2005 Marlin Jackson, DB (29th overall). Result: bust. 2006 Joseph Addai, RB (30th overall). Result: a reasonably good player who seems about what you'd expect from someone picked 30th overall. 2007 Anthony Gonzalez, WR (32nd overall). Result: is currently a backup, and may be a bust. 2008 none So that's three clear-cut success stories for the Colts, plus however much of a success story you consider Joseph Addai. If we give both teams the benefit of the doubt, that works out to four success stories for the Colts, and 1.5 for the Bills (Lee Evans plus half of Leodis McKelvin). The Bills should get credit for the rest of McKelvin after his contract is successfully extended, and after he becomes a regular starter who doesn't get faked out very often. The Colts had four clear-cut success stories out of their seven first round picks during that time. The Bills had 1.5 success stories out of their 11 first round picks during that span. Not only that, but of the Colts' first rounders, only Dwight Freeny (11th overall) was chosen higher than 24th overall. The Bills had significantly more first round picks, at a significantly higher average position in the draft, and yet came away with less than half as many success stories. If that doesn't indicate a problem with their drafting, I don't know what would.

This is an excellent summation of the importance of having a franchise QB. Unless your defense is as good as the Ravens of 2000, you're going to need very good play from your quarterback if you're going to win the Super Bowl. Opportunities to obtain franchise quarterbacks are very rare; and almost always come through the draft. Very often those franchise guys are snapped up within the first five picks. If you don't have a franchise quarterback, and there's an opportunity to take one, you do it. Period. I don't care if your offensive linemen consists of five Cornell Greens, with five Greg Jermans waiting in the wings as eventual successors. You have to take that franchise QB if you can. But that said, I can't think of any circumstance where it would be okay to reach for need. Reaching for need is what got us Donte Whitner and John McCargo. If there isn't a franchise quarterback available when the Bills pick, they should address some other need instead. I also think it's important for the Bills to build an offensive line around whichever franchise QB they take. I realize the defense is a sieve right now, and that that problem needs to be fixed. But the offensive line is a more urgent need, because we owe it to whichever guy we pick to try to keep him from getting drilled into the dirt. It's also a question of protecting our investment in him, as opposed to letting him get shell shocked. Addressing the offensive line could begin with the Bills' second round pick, which should be used on a RT if there's a worthy player there. Replacing Cornell Green with a good football player isn't enough to fully fix the line, but it sure would be a step in the right direction!

Hypothetically speaking, suppose someone were to offer you a bet. If Ponder gets drafted you lose. If he goes undrafted you win. a) Would you be willing to take that bet? b) How much money would you be willing to bet?

For a quarterback to be a bust, he needs to fail in a key area of the game. If he lacks passion for football, he's going to be a bust. If he lacks intelligence or the ability to process information quickly (see: Losman), he's likely to be a bust. If he's not an accurate passer, he could well be a bust. Quite frankly, I don't see Ponder failing in any of those areas. You don't have to agree with me. But if you're going to try to pin the "bust" label on him, please at least identify one or more crucial areas in which you think Ponder will fail as an NFL QB.

Despite my screen name, I tend to emphasize a QB's accuracy, ability to read defenses, and ability to process multiple reads quickly a lot more than I do his physical traits. Based on those criteria, my two favorite quarterbacks are Ponder and Luck. From Buffalo Rumblings: (The same article quoted earlier by gfaulk87.) ************ I've always said that Ponder is a rhythm quarterback with a low ceiling. He's smart, tough and has good enough athleticism and arm strength. So anything that disrupts that rhythm becomes detrimental to his game. In this case, he's had a bruised triceps on his throwing arm since the Oklahoma game on Sept. 11. The FSU offensive line has been a little iffy this year as well. So both of those have really hampered Ponder. ************ I've seen a lot more favorable things written about Ponder elsewhere. But before using a first round pick on a guy, it's good to consider the views of the critics, as well as those of the people who like the player. Being a rhythm quarterback is not a bad thing: Montana was a rhythm quarterback. But not all rhythm quarterbacks necessarily have Montana's ceiling. I wish the author of that piece had explained why he feels Ponder's ceiling is low. Is it because of his physical traits? (If that was the case, I wouldn't agree with his logic.) Or is it because he feels NFL defenses will figure out a way to disrupt Ponder's rhythm? The best way to prevent a defense from getting away with disrupting the is to have a good offensive line, to have the quarterback get rid of the ball in a hurry after a three step drop, and to have good receiving talent. All those things were true of the 49ers teams of which Montana had been a part. While Ponder is probably not going to rise to Montana's level. But if the Bills did draft him, it would have to be part of a larger strategy of improving the offensive line, adding receiving talent, employing mostly three step drops, and generally adopting a fast-paced, rhythm offense.

It's very rare for a first-rate QB in the prime of his career to hit free agency. Of the good QBs currently in the NFL, the only one I can think of who was signed as a free agent was Drew Brees. (Favre no longer counts, because he's clearly on his last legs.) Every other quarterback at or near that level was drafted: Peyton Manning, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan, etc. You point out the risk in taking a quarterback. But other draft positions are risky too. The last time the Bills used a top-10 pick on an offensive lineman, they came away with Mike Williams. The last time they used a top-10 pick on a defensive back, they got Donte Whitner. And the last time they used a top-15 pick on a defensive front-7 player, they came away with Aaron Maybin. You're always going to have risk with your first round draft pick, no matter which position you choose to address. You could argue that, while all positions involve risk, drafting a quarterback involves more risk than most other positions. I don't know whether that's true--I'd have to see the data. But even if it is, getting a franchise quarterback represents a larger reward than successfully filling any other position. If the Colts were to trade away Peyton Manning, how much non-quarterback talent do you think they'd need to acquire to achieve the same W/L record they would have had with Manning? Do you think that a good SS (as Whitner was supposed to have been) would be enough? No? How about two or three players--a TE, a LB, and a SS? Let's say (for the sake of argument) that a non-QB first round pick has a 50% chance of succeeding; whereas a QB first rounder has only a 25% chance of success. If that was the case, you'd expect to have to use two first rounders on some non-QB hole. One on a guy that's a bust, the other on the guy who succeeds. Filling a hole at QB would be twice as expensive: you'd require four first rounders (on average) to fill the position. But those would be picks well-spent, because getting a franchise QB is more than twice as important as filling your average non-QB hole. (That said, it would really surprise me if first round QBs were only half as likely to succeed as non-QBs.)

It's inaccurate to say that Brohm was given three preseason games this year. A better way of putting it would be to state that Brohm received playing time during three different preseason games. But I'd be surprised if he had even one full preseason game worth of playing time; at least during his time with the Bills. I agree with your larger point that the odds of him becoming a franchise QB are slim. But as those on the other side of the debate have pointed out, we have considerably less information about Brohm than about Trent Edwards or Losman. This, even though Edwards' draft position was worse than Brohm's, and Losman's wasn't all that much better. My own personal hope is that the Bills will use their first round pick on a franchise QB, if there's a franchise QB to be had. But in the meantime, I wouldn't object to the team getting a better look at Brohm.

Exactly. The players' union is trying to drive up player salaries, which in turn increases the NFL's costs of doing business. You as the fan are ultimately the one to pay for those increased costs through higher ticket prices, more television advertising, and whatever other ways someone can concoct to extract money out of you. The joke is on us, because the money for that meal ultimately came from us as fans.

Thanks for the compliment. And I think the same about you. Back when you did them, your posts outlining your thoughts about the game were the first thing I'd seek out. In answer to your question: the Spiller pick could be the opening move of a well-conceived, well-executed strategy. Or it could be more of the same shortsightedness we've seen in the past. It's too early to tell which it is until Nix has had a few more drafts with which to work. An offense has to have a good offensive line, and has to have a good quarterback, if it's going to be among the better offenses in the league. (There may be one or two exceptions to that--I've heard Green Bay's offensive line isn't very good--but it would be a serious mistake for someone building a team to rely on such extremely rare exceptions. There's also the question about how all those hits Rogers takes will affect his longevity.) Over the next two or three years, Nix needs to build the offensive line into a reliable, above-average unit or better, and he needs to find a franchise quarterback for the Bills. If he does both those things, there will be every opportunity for Spiller to be for the Bills what Thurman Thomas once was, or what LaDanian Tomlinson had been for the Chargers. But if Nix fails to do those things, Spiller shouldn't necessarily expect to encounter much better circumstances than the ones he found in the Miami game.

If I was building a 3-4, I'd want to have star players at NT, RDE, my rushing OLB, and my #1 CB. Then (if everything is perfect), your RDE is another Bruce Smith, your NT another Ted Washington or Pat Williams, your OLB is another pre-injury Bryce Paup, and your CB is another Antoine Winfield but with better hands. With a defense like that you could rush just three guys and still get a good pass rush from Bruce Smith. Or you could blitz, knowing that you can leave your #1 CB on an island against the other team's #1 WR, and that you'll be okay. That said, I agree the Bills' efforts to build through the secondary have failed. That's due to several factors: misplaced priorities, bad drafting, devoting too may resources to defensive backs and running backs, and to letting those defensive backs go first-contract-and-out after being drafted. In 1993 the Bills used a first round pick on Thomas Smith, CB. Then the next year they used their first rounder on Jeff Burris, another CB. Smith spent seven years (out of nine total in the NFL) with the Bills, so at least we got most of whatever value he brought. The same is not true of Burris, who only spent four years in Buffalo out of a ten year career. I don't care what position you draft--you can't flush first round picks down the toilet that way and expect to build a successful team. You just can't. Apparently, someone at the Bills' front office decided to try to prove me wrong. They drafted Antoine Winfield, CB in the first round of 1999, and Nate Clements, CB, in the first round of 2001. Winfield spent only five years with the Bills (out of twelve years and counting), and Clements spent only six (out of ten years and counting). Having decided that spending too many first round picks on defensive backs wasn't working, someone in the front office thought, Well, maybe that strategy can work as long as we reach for the defensive backs we draft. The Bills therefore used the eighth overall pick on Donte Whitner in 2006. Then they used a first rounder on Leodis McKelvin in 2008, apparently because someone decided it made more sense to do that than to extend Jabari Greer. (That said, I'll like the McKelvin pick a lot more if he spends his career in Buffalo than if he goes first-contract-and-out.) Suppose that the Bills had drafted Winfield in 1999 (just as they did), had kept him here his whole career, and then had drafted McKelvin as his eventual replacement. That would work out to about one first round pick on DBs every decade, which seems more or less the way it should be. But instead, this front office has used first round picks to draft first-contract-and-out DBs, highly overrated DBs, DBs to replace players we should never have been letting go, etc. Over the last twenty years, the Bills have used eight first round picks on DBs! One first rounder on DBs per decade is reasonable. Four per decade is not; especially not for a team that can't keep its QB from getting concussions. In order to throw all those first round picks into the roaring fire of the DB positions, we had to de-prioritize other positions: most notably QB and the OL.

I have mixed feelings about it. As far as I'm concerned, using early picks on RBs is bad. Especially for a team like the Bills, for a host of reasons. But taking the best player available--someone with the best potential to be a difference-maker--is good. From what I gather, Spiller was rated significantly higher than any other player available when the Bills picked. We already have guys who can run the football. Even if Spiller is an improvement over them in that area, it probably won't be enough of an improvement to justify using the 9th overall pick. If that pick does end up making sense, it's going to largely be because of what Spiller can bring to the passing game. He needs to be a receiving threat, much like Thurman Thomas was for the Bills. If he becomes one of the best running backs in the league at pass receiving, if he excels at blitz pickup, and if he has top-10 running skills, and if he has a long career with the Bills, it will have been a successful pick. I realize that's a lot of ifs, but I also think Spiller is a very talented player who might actually pull it off.

I don't fully share your conclusions. If a coach decides to start Kelsay it doesn't mean the coach thinks he's a good player. It just means the coach thinks he's better than his backup. You could turn your attention to the general manager, and ask why, if Kelsay was so bad, no one tried to replace him. But the Bills over the last ten years haven't exactly been bursting with Pro Bowl talent. There were plenty of other needs for general managers to focus on, as well as plenty of shiny McGahee/Parrish-style players for them to draft if they didn't feel like addressing the team's many needs. That said, I'll grant that Kelsay is a decent player as a LDE in a 4-3. Defensive linemen in a 4-3 aren't supposed to be jacks of all trades; and Kelsay was reasonably good at not being pushed around by offensive linemen on running plays. Given the scheme and the circumstances, that was enough. But the whole idea behind a 3-4 is to create unpredictability for the other team's offense. The source of your unpredictability is supposed to be your linebackers. On running plays, you obviously want guys good against the run. But just because Kelsay is good against the run at the line of scrimmage does not necessarily mean he's good in space, where speed is at more of a premium. On passing downs, you presumably want your linebackers to either be dropping back into coverage or rushing the quarterback. Kelsay can do neither. Back in 2000, the Bills offered a high dollar, multi-year contract extension to John Fina. Needless to say, Fina accepted. The next year when TD took over, he immediately released Fina. Fina ended up signing with another team at the league minimum. There were strong similarities between Fina's extension and Kelsay's: both players had been drafted by the Bills, both were below-average starters, both had had a lot of starts over their respective careers, and both contract extensions were derided by most of the Bills' fan base. As to why this team sometimes acts that way, I honestly don't know. What I do know is that the Bills would overpay for below-average players like Fina, only to let their best players--such as Winfield--leave in free agency. More recently, Marv lavished large sums on guys like Langston Walker, Peerless Price, Larry Triplett, Melvin Fowler, and others not worthy of being starters, while letting Jabari Greer leave in free agency. Right now, I as a fan am looking for evidence that the front office knows what it's doing. I'm not going to simply assume that the front office's decisions are better than the decisions our more intelligent and knowledgeable fans would have made. Over the last ten years, that kind of assumption would have been in error. I've seen some things from this front office which have given me hope and confidence in the future. But I've also seen some things which at least initially appear to have been errors. The Cornell Green signing was obviously an error. At that point, you may as well just burn the $3 million a year. At least then you wouldn't have to deal with the idea that you're inflating Green's bank account. At first glance, Kelsay's extension brings back memories of the one the Bills gave Fina. Hopefully we won't see many more of these types of moves in the future.

I agree with most of what you've written in your well-expressed post. However, an average playoff team as as many losses as wins, so any playoff record over .500 is above-average. Just to add to what you've written, I came across a Wikipedia article listing NFL postseason droughts. The Bills and Lions are tied for the longest active postseason drought. The Bills have the fifth-longest playoff game victory drought. The Bills are tied for first with five other teams for the longest wait before their first Super Bowl Championship. That's a 44 year wait! The Bills have the third-longest active drought for division title.

It would be nice to get Carrington some experience, as well as to get a look at him in a real game.