Orton's Arm

The bolded statement is not what I was saying at all. Nor is it remotely consistent with the raw data I provided. Both Edwards and Losman had one season of being the uncontested starter--2006 for Losman, and 2008 for Edwards. Losman and Edwards had two seasons each of being a "contested starter"--getting about half the starts in a competition with some other quarterback. Losman's contested starter seasons were 2005 (with Kelly Holcomb) and 2007 (with Trent Edwards). Edwards' two contested seasons were 2007 (with Losman) and 2009 (with Fitzpatrick). Losman's and Edwards' careers are nearly parallel. They had nearly identical numbers of starts for the Bills, and have each had the same overall opportunity to prove themselves.

I strongly prefer the first scenario. The Bills have needed a franchise QB ever since Kelly hung up his cleats. I believe Ponder can be the answer at QB for many years to come. Starting QB is the hardest position to fill. If you don't have a franchise QB and have the chance to take one, you do it. Period. If you want a good LT, you normally have to use a first round pick to get one. My thought is to ignore the LT position in the 2011 draft, on the theory that Bell is a decent stopgap, and that they can't address all their needs in one draft anyway. This year, I'd favor using the 2nd round pick on a RT, in hopes of solidifying that position for the next decade, and in hopes of never seeing Cornell Green in a Bills uniform again. I'd also like to see the Bills add an interior OL in round 3. Last year Hangartnar was the 32nd ranked starting center. If we draft an OG in round 3 we could move Wood to center. Or we could use a third round pick on a center straight up. Drafting a LB in round 4 makes a lot of sense. With the Bills' defense being what it is you'd obviously like to take a LB earlier than that. But the Bills' needs at QB and OL are simply too dire. I'm not a big fan of drafting a QB in the later rounds, as is the case in your second scenario. Normally you'd use a first round pick on a starting QB, and a later round pick on a backup. The Bills have some guys on the roster who should be decent backup QBs. What they need is a starter. With the addition of a starting QB and two starting OL, the offense should have decent depth. I'd prefer for most or all of the picks in rounds 4 - 7 to be used on defensive players; especially guys in the front seven. There are too many guys on that defense better suited for the Tampa-2 than for the 3-4. I know we can't give the defense everything it needs in this draft, but there's a chance to find decent depth players, and to weed out a few 4-3 guys like Kelsay in favor of guys better-suited for the 3-4. The fact that Kelsay is a starter indicates that we need two players at that position alone: one to replace Kelsay, and the other to replace whichever player failed to beat him out.

I'll address your bolded statement. Losman was drafted in 2004. He spent his rookie year on the bench--a chance to absorb the offensive terminology and study film. He also had the chance to practice both before his injury, and after he'd healed. Year 2 of Losman's career was 2005. He had eight career starts that year. Losman looked a lot less polished as a second-year player than Edwards would later look as a rookie. Year 3 of Losman's career was 2006. Statistically it was by far his best season. But it was noted that the offense had been radically simplified to accommodate his mental limitations. His successes came more from long bombs to Lee Evans rather than using short, accurate passes to sustain drives over the course of many plays. That style of offense was fine while it lasted, but eventually defenses adapted. Year 4 of Losman's career was 2007. By then defenses had learned to take away his deep game and force him to beat you with underneath stuff. As a result of defenses' adaptations, Losman looked worse in 2007 than he had in 2006. He was unable to ward off the challenge of the rookie Edwards. Year 5 of Losman's career was 2008. By this time Losman was going for that "homeless" look, and had been demoted to third string status. Losman was given four years in which to prove himself: a rookie year to sit and learn on the bench, and three years of playing time. (Though there were long stretches during two of those three years when he'd been benched due to poor play.) Year 1 of Edwards' career was 2007. He received significant playing time after Losman was benched. Year 2 of Edwards' career was 2008. He started for 14 games that year. Year 3 of Edwards' career was 2009. He had only seven starts that year due to injuries and being benched in favor of Fitzpatrick. Defenses had learned that you're supposed to take away Edwards' underneath game and force him to beat you deep. Year 4 of Edwards' career is this year. He's had only two starts before his benching. This seems to be the year the Bills give up on him. Losman had 31 career starts during his time in Buffalo, as compared to 32 career starts for Edwards. The Bills gave up on Losman well into year 4 of his career; whereas they are seemingly giving up on Edwards only two games into year 4 of his career. Both quarterbacks have had about the same number of years, and about the same number of career starts, in which to prove themselves. Neither did. At this point, our thoughts about the Bills' quarterbacking future should revolve around the 2011 draft.

If letting Losman go was a mistake, the Bills have every opportunity to correct it. Losman's current status is "cut," so he's there for whichever NFL team wants him. No one has signed him so far--even as a #3. But just because he's not good enough to even make anyone else's roster doesn't mean he can't be the long-term answer as a starter here in Buffalo. We acquired our starting RT by signing a player no one else wanted. Why not get our starting QB that way as well?

Good point. This year's schedule looks to be a lot tougher than any schedule we saw in the Jauron era. Plus like people said, Jauron had players like Schobel and TO that Gailey doesn't have. Also, don't forget the games Byrd won for the team last year practically by himself. This year he hasn't done as much so far both because of his injury and because there haven't been very many errant passes for him to intercept.

I think Edwards could be a decent backup QB, but I agree I haven't seen much from him lately which would make me think of him as a starter. I'd like to see the Bills add a starting QB in the first round of the 2011 draft. That said, I'll address your bolded statement. Later on in 2006 (when Losman threw for 300 yards), his offensive line consisted of Jason Peters as a Pro Bowl LT; when he was having his Pro Bowl year. The rest of the line was less good than that. But the pass protection provided by that line as a whole was much better than what we saw last year or the first two games of this season. Again, this is not to make excuses for Edwards, a QB whom I feel needs to be replaced (at least as a starter). But the line is abysmal, and has clearly gone downhill since 2006.

Here's an article about Ponder. It's not as good as the article I was looking for, but it's worth reading. It's also worth noting that Ponder is the top-rated QB according to the National Scouting Service. Many NFL teams use National to help with their scouting.

There's no time like the present for a mock draft! Bearing that in mind, I came up with the following: 1. QB 2. RT 3. LB 4 - 7 depth players/ ST. I'd like to come away with at least one OL and at least one LB from this part of the draft. My thoughts on the above positions: QB: Unless your defense is as good as the Ravens of 2000, it's very tough to win a Super Bowl without first-rate play from your QB. Trent Edwards was drafted in the third round, and seems to be giving us about what you'd expect from a QB taken in the third or fourth round of the draft. Under the right circumstances he could be a decent backup, but I don't see him as ever becoming a top-10 starter. A QB like Ponder or Luck could give us one of the puzzle pieces we need to be a legitimate Super Bowl threat. RT: At least at the end of week 1, RT seemed to be the weak link on the OL. Round 2 seems like about the right place to find your starting RT. No matter what happens elsewhere on the line, it would be nice to have this position shored up. LB: Obviously, our defense needs more help than just this. But it's not like we're going to fill all our holes in just one offseason. Adding a solid football player/solid starter to our LB corps will certainly go a long way toward improving what is currently our defense's biggest weakness. I didn't choose a LT in this draft because I figure that you really need to use a round 1 pick on one to get a good one, and we really need to use that first round pick on a QB. Also, Bell played better than I'd expected him to in the first game. There's at least a chance we can get by with Bell at LT for a while if we have to.

I looked at the receiving stats for the game, and found the following: Player_________Receptions________Yards Steve Johnson______3_______________40 Roscoe Parrish_____2_______________35 Lee Evans__________4_______________34 D. Nelson__________3_______________22 Spiller____________4_______________8 Fred Jackson_______2_______________0 At least at first glance, those numbers seem about as favorable to Steve Johnson as they do to any other receiver on the field that day for the Bills. However, I watched the game only once, on television, and did not pay special attention to Johnson's play. I'd appreciate comments about Johnson's play from someone who saw the game in-person, or who watched it multiple times in an effort to pay special attention to the performance of players like Johnson.

I voted for "I booed them" because that's what I would have done had I been there. Unfortunately, the poll didn't contain options for people to express their general approval or disapproval of the players' demonstration.

At least on paper, the OL is significantly worse this season than it was last year. We lost Butler to retirement and Incognito to free agency. We added . . . Cornell Green?!?! Eventually, I think Nix will get things turned around. But this season, expect the offense to look a lot like it did against the Dolphins: plagued by the combination of bad OL play and bad QB play. It's going to be a long season.

I'm a little surprised by the tone of this thread. Maroney was drafted in the first round of the 2006 draft. The Patriots just finished trading him away for a 4th round draft pick. (Well, part of a 4th round draft pick, anyway.) And for that they get heaped with praise? I can see complimenting them on the strength of their recent drafts, if that's what you want to do. But a move like this is not particularly noteworthy.

Well said! The first question you have to ask with a rebuilding effort is this: did we lose anyone who could help us significantly three or four years down the line? Brad Butler retired, but Nix can hardly be blamed for Butler's decision to abandon football in favor of politics. Aaron Schobel and Terrell Owens were aging players nearing retirement. Very unlikely to be useful in 2013. Whatever young players we may have lost seem like backup quality at best. The next question you have to ask is, did we gain anyone who can help us significantly three or four years down the line? The answer there is yes as well: Spiller, Troupe, other draft picks, and some free agent signings. The third question you have to ask is, are we gaining new talent at a fast enough pace for the rebuilding effort to succeed? Every team in the NFL is always losing talent due to retirements, career-ending injuries, aging players not playing as well as they once did, etc. A strategy of "add one good player a year for the next 22 years" won't get you 22 good starters, because the starters you acquired in the early years of that plan will be retired long before year 22. At least this early in Nix's tenure, it's difficult to determine whether the pace of talent acquisition is fast enough. But at least thus far, the pace of talent acquisition seems pretty good.

I agree with you that there was no way Nix could fill all our holes in one offseason, let alone one draft. But that said, the two needs I considered most important going into that draft were QB and OL. Clearly, Nix did almost nothing to address either of those needs. But that doesn't make him a bad GM. It's rare to find a good LT outside of round 1. There were no LTs worthy of being chosen 9th overall. Clausen didn't go until the middle of the second round, so picking him 9th overall would have been a mistake as well. As much as I was annoyed by the idea of going with a RB over a LT or QB in the first round, I can see where the players available would indicate that kind of decision. At least early on, Nix seems to have gotten good value from his overall collection of draft picks, and from his more important free agent signings (except Cornell Green). If he continues with that track record, then sooner or later this team will be rebuilt, and we'll have the holes at QB and OL fixed.

Cornell Greene signing: I agree that we're heavily overpaying for an overrated, aging Raiders reject. Clearly that was a mistake, as many on this board pointed out at the time. Hopefully he'll be replaced sooner rather than later. Spiller: I agree that RB was one of the last positions I hoped the team would address. On the other hand, most analysts had Spiller as the best-rated player on the board; and by a fairly significant margin. It's better to do that than to pull a Donte Whitner--that is, reaching for a player on the basis of perceived need. This team needs difference-makers, and you're not going to find them by reaching. QB: I fully agree the Bills need an upgrade at QB. Possibly they are waiting for next year's draft when players like Ponder will be available. The only real option they would have had in this year's draft was Jimmy Clausen. While I personally liked Clausen, I respect the fact that Nix didn't want to take a chance on a player with whom he didn't feel comfortable. He just needs to address QB next year is all. As for the other positions you mentioned: the team Nix inherited was riddled with holes; and there was no way he was going to fill all those holes in one offseason. He probably got the best player available in Spiller. Spiller might not do us that much good this year; at least not if we continue to see the combination of the defense stacking the box and the offensive line getting manhandled. Almost no RB could succeed under circumstances like that. But once the QB and OL have been upgraded, we should start seeing more benefits from the Spiller pick. The Bills' second round pick was used on Troupe, a NT who seems to be off to a solid start. I think that some guys from rounds 3 - 7 will also become solid football players; though with injuries holding some of those guys back it's hard to be sure. Overall, I think that Nix did a good job of using his draft picks to acquire solid football players. Moreover, most of his more important free agent signings seem to be working out significantly better than Cornell Greene. Rebuilding the mess Nix inherited is not the work of a single year. We should be patient with him as long as it's clear that he's doing a good job of his main task: rebuilding through the draft. If at any point his draft picks start looking like those of a Matt Millen or a Marv Levy, it will be time to reevaluate him.

Sounds good. The overall point you're trying to make here--that the Bills have a serious problem at the QB position--is well-taken. Even thinking about Edwards' reasonably solid play in the preseason, I think to myself, What if he does just enough to prevent the Bills from addressing the QB position in next year's draft, but never enough to be a real answer? What if the Bills pass up a player like Ponder, only to watch him have a significantly better career than Edwards? As you've probably already figured out from this discussion, you probably have to be a little careful about how you phrase things. The next time you create a poll like this, I'd suggest something along the lines of, "Is Trent Edwards: a) Among the top 10 in the league b) Between the 11th best and 20th best QBs in the league c) Between the 21st best and 32nd best QBs in the league d) Worse than the 32nd best QB in the league With a poll like that, I'd vote for option c. But someone who really disliked Edwards, and who was impressed with some of the better backup QBs in the league, might go for option d. I could envision a guy like Dog voting for option b, while restraining himself from choosing a. (Dog sees the glass as half full.)

There's a chance Fitzpatrick won't make the final roster cut. Brohm has looked reasonably solid so far in preseason--at least by the Bills' standards. Fitzpatrick makes a lot of money; and I think the Bills would like to avoid paying that salary if possible. If Fitzpatrick doesn't offer significantly more than Brohm as a #2, and if Levi Brown seems like a good developmental prospect as a #3, it's possible Fitzpatrick could be on his way out the door. This is not another "Ralph is cheap" post. However, it's a fact that due to changes in revenue sharing and the salary cap, it's harder for small market teams to stay competitive financially. That means that if you have a high salary that isn't associated with a corresponding increase in the on-field product, you're best served by eliminating it. Granted, larger market teams should do the same, but their larger revenue bases mean they don't get hurt as badly by wasting a little money here and there.

No problem. Thanks for the polite response.

During the 2011 off season, which direction would you suggest the Bills take at RT? Do you think they should acquire yet another Raiders retread? Or would you prefer to see them take someone from Green Bay's practice squad?

Early in the game, you want a big, physical back to pound the defense and wear it down. Lynch is a good candidate to fill that role. Once the defense is worn down, banged up, and a little tired, you want a speedy guy to come in and exploit whatever weaknesses have been created. Spiller should be excellent at that. Some running backs thought of themselves as players who ran harder as the game went on. And in fact, their yards-per-carry would typically be higher in the third and fourth quarter than it was in the first quarter. But that was more a function of the defense wearing down, than it was the running backs performing at a higher level later in games. The Bills may as well give those valuable, late game opportunities to Spiller.

Thanks for the compliments. You've made some very first-rate contributions to this thread of your own! I fully agree with everything you've written about the desirability of drafting a QB in the first round. As you've shown, there are very few good, non-first round QBs in the league. Moreover, the pace at which those QBs have been added has been very slow. Tom Brady was taken in the sixth round of 2000. But since then, how many good QBs have been taken outside the first 32 picks? Looking at your list, the only two good ones I saw (that entered the league from 2001 to the present) were Tony Romo and Matt Schaub. That's a pace of one good non-first round QB every five years. With 32 teams in the league, that means that each team will, on average, receive a good non-first round QB once every 150 years or so. (Give or take.) Conversely, that list contained eight or nine first round QBs drafted since 2000 who have proven to be very good. That means that each team, will, on average, receive a good first-round QB about once every 37 years. But that number should improve once guys like Matt Stafford are given more time to prove what they can do. So maybe the real number is once every 32 or 34 years or so. Ideally, you'd like to be getting a first-rate QB once every ten to 15 years. To bridge the gap between the 32 - 37 years (league average) and 13 years (targeted average for your team) your team needs to use an above-average number of first round picks on QBs, and it needs to do an above-average job of selecting those QBs. Even then you're probably going to experience gaps in your quarterback play. By the time Peyton Manning retires, will the Colts have found a first-rate QB to take his place? The Bills experienced a similar problem after Kelly retired--a problem which has yet to be solved. The goal of getting a good QB once every 13 years is probably a little on the ambitious side; but it's well worth attempting.

Just to add to my earlier post: back in the '90s, Kurt Warner tried out for the Green Bay Packers. However, he was unable to make the final roster cut. After his rejection, he stocked shelves in a grocery store for a while, in addition to playing for various non-NFL football leagues. Eventually he got another chance at an NFL career, with the St. Louis Rams. Clearly, the Packers made a very serious mistake in cutting Warner. They should have kept him around for a year or two to learn the offense and adjust to the NFL. Once he was ready to play at the level he did for the Rams, they could have traded away Favre in his prime for what would have been a king's ransom. By way of comparison, the Broncos got two first rounders for trading away Jay Cutler. One can only imagine the price Favre in his prime would have fetched. Under Ron Wolf, the Packers were one of the best teams in the league at evaluating QB talent. There were a number of times when the Packers were able to draft a QB, keep him around as a backup for a few years, and then trade him away for a better pick than the one they'd used to get him. The Packers' decision to release Kurt Warner is clearly not reflective of any deficiency in the Packers' front office's ability to evaluate QB talent. The reason the Packers released Warner was because they had only had him around for one training camp. Clearly, that was not enough time for the Packers to make a good decision. To give a guy a fair chance, you need to give him the chance to learn the offense; and then to show what he can do in the preseason. Warner is almost certainly going to be a first ballot Hall of Fame QB, so he clearly would have done very well had he been given that chance. The Kurt Warner story illustrates that there is a limit to the speed at which your team can evaluate QBs. If you try to evaluate QBs too quickly, you'll end up in the same situation the Packers did. Your team will be unable to identify the next Kurt Warner even when he's already on your roster, and you'll end up releasing him (as the Packers did with Warner). Another story which illustrates the difficulties of QB evaluation is Tom Brady's. Tom Brady was clearly a better QB than Drew Bledsoe. But the Patriots didn't realize what they had in Brady until Bledsoe went down with that injury. Had Bledsoe remained healthy, Brady could have lingered on that roster for years in kind of a limbo status. The Patriots wouldn't want to cut him because of how good he (presumably) looked in practice. But neither would they have started him, because of the feeling that Bledsoe was probably better. Unless you're going to bench your starter on the off chance that your backup might be better, there's not a whole lot you can do to avoid the problem of that limbo status. If you have some late round pick who looks good in practice and in the preseason, will he turn out to be the next Tom Brady? Or will he turn out to be just another backup? You won't know until you give him significant action in the regular season. Your starter might not get injured for a long time. Together, the Kurt Warner story and the Tom Brady story illustrate the difficulty of trying to process too many QBs through your team too quickly. The Kurt Warner example shows that you can make a much more accurate evaluation of a QB after you've given him the chance to learn the offense and adjust to the NFL. The Tom Brady example demonstrates the fact that even after a QB looks good in practice and the preseason, you won't really know what you have until you give him extended playing time in the regular season. Whether or when that happens will largely depend on your starter's ability to avoid injury. A strategy of "draft a late-round QB every year until you find the right one," is potentially deeply flawed. If you want to add a late-round QB to your roster each year, you need to remove an existing QB from your roster every year. There may be circumstances where you could get away with that. For example, if you had a Ryan Fitzpatrick on your roster, and knew that that guy didn't have much upside. But what do you do if your backups have looked good in practice and the preseason? Are any of them Tom Brady stories? You won't know until you give them significant playing time in the regular season. And if your plan is to release one of them without giving him significant playing time, then what's going to happen to that late round pick you're adding? In a year or two, that late round pick will (hopefully) look good in practice and in the preseason, yet he'll also end up getting released to make room for some other late round pick. Because there's a limit to the speed at which your team can accurately evaluate QBs, a team that needs a QB is better off with one or two high percentage chances of getting a good QB, than it is with a large number of low percentage chances. You wrote about how picking a bad QB in the first round can set the franchise back three years. There are two components to that situation: the waste of the first round pick, and the lack of other measures to address the QB situation during that three year period. As I've mentioned elsewhere, that first round pick is going to be a risk no matter which position you choose to address. So the real potential downside here is the failure to otherwise address the QB position while your chosen QB is in development. Let's think about that second point a little more closely. If a team has a very high draft pick invested in a QB, will that stop it from using a late round pick on some other QB it really likes? Probably not: the logic would be that if the late round QB works out, he'll be a good backup, or can be traded away for a better pick than the one used to take him. Green Bay, for example, drafted Flynn even though they had Rodgers and had just drafted Brohm. But a first round bust at QB will do several things which will hurt your franchise. 1) That first round pick may be thrown to the wolves his rookie year. Or he may be inserted at the beginning of his second year even if he looked lousy in practice during his first year. Either way, he's being given starts he did nothing to earn; thereby preventing you from evaluating other, potentially more promising QBs. 2) The presence of a first round QB on your roster will typically prevent your team from drafting another QB in the first or early second round. Both of those factors can significantly slow the pace at which you fill the void at QB. Factor 1) is avoidable: as a coach, you should not play a QB his rookie year; and you should not make a first round pick into a starter until he looks good in practice. Factor 2 is harder to get around: it's difficult to justify throwing first round picks at a position without first having determined if the first rounder you already have can do the job. But the correct response to #2 is not, however, to say, "Well, then, I just won't use any first round picks on that position at all." The problem with factor 2) is a failure to use enough early picks on the QB position. Denying the QB position of any early picks at all, ever, does nothing to solve that problem. On the contrary.

There are several points I'd like to address here, so I'll start with the one you made in your opening salvo of this thread. You wrote that Brohm illustrates the danger of picking a QB in the first round, and that you hope the Bills use next year's first round pick on a LB or an OT. It's worth bearing in mind, however, that the last time the Bills used a first round pick on a LB they got Aaron Maybin, and the last time they used a first rounder on an OT they got Mike Williams. The point here is that there's no such thing as a risk-free first round pick. There's going to be a chance of a bust no matter which position you focus on. (To forestall debate about Maybin: there may still be a chance of him living up to his draft position--but it's very far from certain that he will do so.) Now onto my second point. Of the quarterbacks you listed, not all were consensus first round picks. Dave Wannestadt, for example, said that he wouldn't draft Losman with the last pick of the seventh round. Other NFL men eventually came around to his point of view, which is why Losman ended up in the UFL. The warning signs were there, Wannestadt saw them, and TD didn't. But even in TD's case--he tried, unsuccessfully, to trade up for Roethlisberger before ultimately drafting Losman. So even he knew that Roethlisberger had the better chance of being a good QB; although he clearly overestimated Losman's chances. Nor was Losman's case unique. During the Manning/Leaf debate, Manning was described as a more polished passer, more NFL-ready, and so on. However, Leaf supposedly had better "upside" due to his greater level of physical gifts. More generally, first round QB busts were often the result of NFL GMs overemphasizing physical gifts while placing too little emphasis on accuracy, intelligence, fast information processing, and other mental traits. The solution here is obvious: if you need a QB, don't be afraid to use a first round pick on one. But pay less attention to physical "upside" than the Bobby Beathard-style GMs typically do. There's still going to be a chance of the QB becoming a bust--as would be the case for any other position you chose to address. But by emphasizing accuracy and mental traits well above physical upside, you're significantly reducing your chances of drafting a bust. One last thing: Drew Brees was the 32nd overall pick of the 2001 draft. In today's NFL, the 32nd overall pick would be the last pick of the first round. But back in 2001, the Houston Texans did not yet exist, so the first round only had 31 picks. (The Texans first appeared--and first drafted--in 2002.) The Drew Brees problem could be solved by substituting the cumbersome phrase "quarterbacks drafted in the top 32 picks" for "QBs drafted in the first round."

I haven't voted here because none of the options reflect what I believe. I see very little upside with our present QBs. (Brohm being a possible, but somewhat doubtful, exception.) On the other hand, there are probably a few teams with QB situations that are bad enough that one of our guys could start. Your poll makes me choose between "they couldn't start anywhere" and "they have a ton of upside"--neither of which I agree with.

I find this very difficult to believe. Other than throwing six interceptions in that one game against the Bills, while playing behind one of the best OLs in football, what has Sanchez done to convince you he's a good quarterback?