Orton's Arm

I don't necessarily agree with the bolded text. Recall that Green Bay had several years during which to evaluate Aaron Rogers during practices and in the preseason. Yet at the end of that time, they felt enough uncertainty about his future to use a second round pick on Brohm. If the Packers' coaching staff was unable to conclusively evaluate Rogers even though they had several years, what makes you think Gailey can properly evaluate Brohm over the course of a few minicamps? It's also worth noting that Gailey is installing a new offensive scheme, so none of the quarterbacks he'll be evaluating will have fully absorbed the playbook. If you evaluate a guy before he's learned the scheme, there's a good chance of underestimating what that guy can do.

Obviously we see things very differently, but I'd like to focus on the part of your post where you claim that "the draft is essentially a crapshoot." Due to my lack of mind reading skills, I don't know what you, specifically, meant by that word. But many people use that word to mean an event entirely dependent on luck or random chance. Whatever else the NFL draft may be, it is not that. The draft day outcomes that a Matt Millen will achieve are--all else being equal--going to be significantly inferior to those a Bill Polian will obtain. Player evaluation is a skill; and some GMs have more of that skill than others. It is also true that earlier picks are more valuable than later picks. The Patriots once traded away two picks in the latter part of the first round to obtain a single pick in the top ten. The players with the most talent, those who have proven the most at the college level, those with the fewest associated question marks, and those at the most sought-after positions, tend to be taken the earliest. In particular, the highest-rated QBs of any given draft are generally off the boards by pick #10, or (usually) pick #5. Peyton Manning, Eli Manning, and Carson Palmer went first overall, Matt Ryan went third overall, and Philip Rivers went 4th overall. According to the draft day value chart, the first overall pick is worth 3000 points; as compared to 850 points for the 20th overall pick. The reason that the first overall pick is worth 3.5 times as much as the 20th overall pick is because players like Peyton Manning, Bruce Smith, Orlando Pace, etc. tend to be taken first overall. With a very early draft pick, the Bills would have a much better chance of taking an elite player.

Currently, the Bills have major holes at QB, LT, C, RT, #1 WR (opposite Evans), etc. And that's just on offense. A team like that isn't going to win the Super Bowl, and probably isn't going to make the playoffs. But if the Bills end the season with a very early draft pick, they could take a QB like Ponder; and then they could trade back into the first round to draft a LT. Depth and rotational players could be found in rounds 4 - 7. While this strategy wouldn't fill every hole this team has, it would address the two most critical. Then in the 2012 draft, the Bills could use their first round pick on a #1 WR, their 2nd rounder on a RT, and their third round pick on an OG. They'd move Wood to C. The holes on offense would then be filled; and the Bills team would then be dangerous! But a lot of that danger element would disappear if the Bills didn't have a good QB. If your goal is to draft a Peyton Manning or a Philip Rivers or a Matt Ryan, it really helps to have a top-five pick!

I'll agree with you up to a point. It's true the team never replaced Kelly, and that the lack of a Kelly-like QB has been a huge source of pain ever since Jimbo hung up his cleats. But there are other players from those teams who never got replaced either. Other than a year or two of good LT play from Jason Peters, we never replaced Will Wolford. There was no replacement for Kent Hull after he retired. This team could also use a Howard Ballard. While the failure to replace Kelly was the single biggest source of failure, the almost complete lack of talent on the current OL (other than at guard), is enough to kill the offense even if we did have a QB.

I voted for other. The Bills are a rebuilding team, and as such need draft position more than they need a week 1 victory.

In the big scheme of things, it doesn't make sense for an aging QB who's still got something left in his tank to sign with a rebuilding team that has no offensive line, and provides no pass protection. If you were Tom Brady, would you want to sign with the Bills?

I'll specifically address your bolded text, because I'm one of the people who (all else being equal) would like to see Brohm start. Let's suppose you're right, and that he'll "stink up the joint," thus proving Green Bay was right to cut him. For the sake of argument let's define "stinking up the joint" as being a significant step down from the level of play Edwards would have provided. That kind of step down in QB play could easily cost the Bills 2 - 3 wins they would otherwise have obtained with Edwards under center. A W/L record that's worse by two or three games puts the Bills that much closer to being able to draft a top-tier QB like Ponder in the 2011 draft. I know I might take some flak for thinking about the draft before the first game of the preseason has been played! But let's face it: this team is riddled with holes, and the draft is a very good way to fill them. In particular, we can be fairly confident that Edwards isn't the answer at QB, and we know that Fitzpatrick isn't the answer. If Brohm isn't the answer either, then odds are we should be drafting a QB with our first round pick of the 2011 draft. (Assuming there's a good one available when we pick.) The higher the Bills' draft position, the better the team's odds of getting the QB they really want. The hope in starting Brohm is that he'll either "stink up the joint"--thus providing the Bills with vital draft position--or that he'll turn out to be the answer at QB. The worst-case scenario would be for Brohm or for some other QB to play just well enough to keep the Bills out of the early part of the first round, but not well enough to be the answer at QB.

The Green Bay Packers also released Kurt Warner. The circumstances were in some ways similar: the Packers had Favre as their starter, and Mark Brunell and Ty Detmer as their 2nd and 3rd string QBs. The Packers felt very comfortable with that QB situation, and rightly so. After being released, Warner stocked shelves at a grocery store. There were some differences in the two situations. Warner was given just one training camp + preseason in which to showcase himself; whereas Brohm had a full year plus the beginning of his second year. Also, Warner was an UDFA, whereas Brohm was a 2nd round pick. Normally, when a team uses a pick early in the second round on a player, it's because there was a need at his position. While there was a perceived need at QB for Green Bay, that perceived need quickly disappeared once they started giving Aaron Rodgers playing time. With Flynn turning out to be a very solid backup, the Packers were set at QB with or without Brohm. Suppose you have an early draft pick on your roster who's developing slowly. You ask yourself, "If I give up on him too early, what am I risking?" Green Bay's thought process probably went something like this: "Given how well Rodgers is playing, odds are slim that Brohm will ever be a better QB. Even if he someday becomes a better QB than Rodgers, odds are the difference won't be enough to matter. Our main incentive for keeping Brohm on the roster is the hope that he'll someday be a better backup QB than Flynn. But we really like Flynn, and think he's plenty good enough to be our long-term plan at backup. And right now we really need a roster spot . . ." In a nutshell, the Packers had comparatively little to gain by keeping Brohm on the roster, even if he is destined to someday be a good NFL QB.

The Packers felt a lot of confidence in their starter (Rodgers) and their backup (Flynn). Given their comfort level in that situation, they didn't feel the need to bend over backwards to give huge opportunities to Brohm. Granted, Brohm has proven very little on the NFL level. But Green Bay only gave him his rookie year and the first portion of his second year to prove himself. Had the Bills taken a similar approach with Losman, Losman would have been released fairly early in the 2005 season (when he was competing with Holcomb). Admittedly, Losman turned out to be a bust. There's a significant chance the same will happen with Brohm. But there's at least a chance--however fleeting--that Brohm will turn out to be the guy. I think the Bills should start Brohm in 2010 to see what he has or doesn't have. Unless Brohm really shows something, the Bills should most likely draft a QB like Christian Ponder with their first round pick of the 2011 draft.

Trent Dilfer's career passer rating was 70.2; as compared to 82.5 for Brad Johnson. A significant difference! During the year the Bucs won the Super Bowl, Johnson achieved a QB rating of 92.9, averaged 6.8 yards per attempt, and had 22 TDs to just 6 INTs. That's a lot more than you'd expect from just a caretaker QB. During the year the Ravens won the Super Bowl Trent Dilfer had a QB rating of 76.6, averaged 6.6 yards per pass attempt, and threw 12 TDs to 11 INTs. That was a decent, but not spectacular, performance. In 2005, Kelly Holcomb had a QB rating of 85.6, averaged 6.6 yards per pass attempt, and threw 10 TDs to 8 INTs. Those represent slightly better numbers than Dilfer, achieved under much worse circumstances. Dilfer was playing behind Hall of Fame-level Ogden at LT back in 2000; whereas Holcomb had no offensive line at all. The pass protection of the 2005 Bills' OL was bad to atrocious even by the standards of the Bills of the 2000s; which is saying an awful lot indeed. I was surprised to see some people rank Dilfer significantly higher than Holcomb. It seemed like those people were rewarding Dilfer for having been surrounded with a lot of talent; while punishing Holcomb for the fact that the Bills' offense of 2005 surrounded its QBs with very little talent.

You very well may have a point.

No. He wasn't on the roster recently enough.

In another thread, someone wrote that Trent Dilfer was a better QB than anyone the Bills have had over the last ten years. That got me thinking. How would I rank the Bills' QBs of the last ten years, I asked myself, and where would Trent Dilfer fall on that list if he'd played for the Bills? After mulling that question over a bit, I came up with the following rankings for the Bills' QBs over the last decade. I split Drew Bledsoe's time here into two, because he played like Tarzan his first eight games, and like Jane for the remainder of his career here. Feel free to add your own rankings, as well as to indicate how you think Trent Dilfer stacks up to the Bills' QBs over the last ten years. 1. Drew Bledsoe (first eight games) 2. Kelly Holcomb. In every game Holcomb played from start to finish, the offense scored at least 14 points. He nearly led the Bills to victory over the Patriots. His overall stats were very solid, even though he played behind an abysmal offensive line. 3. Drew Bledsoe (the remainder of his stay in Buffalo). Bledsoe's play during that span was mediocre. But on this list, mediocre is good enough for third place. 4. Trent Dilfer (career). Dilfer was a decent QB, nothing more. 5. Rob Johnson. When you gave him time to throw, he'd eat defenses alive. Unfortunately, he was also a sack waiting to happen, and he seemed to play worse in the 2000s than he had in the late '90s. 6. Trent Edwards. This seems a little high for Edwards, but there isn't exactly a whole lot of competition on this list. 7. JP Losman. This is a little high for Losman. He had a million dollar body and ten cent brain. But there isn't a whole lot of competition beneath him. 8. Ryan Fitzpatrick. His accuracy is very poor, but he seems to partially make up for it in other ways. 9. Alex van Pelt. He tried hard, but didn't have a lot of talent.

The word is sometimes used to describe a player with good physical characteristics who has yet to produce much at the NFL level. I don't like using the word in that sense, because it would imply that a player's potential is analogous to his physical potential. But Joe Montana lasted until the third round because of his lack of arm strength. He had plenty of upside--that is, plenty of potential to achieve greatness at the NFL level--but his upside did not consist of outstanding physical traits. When evaluating a player's upside, it's important to look not just at his physical traits; but at the things he did well at the college level. Montana, for example, was a very accurate college passer, and excelled at hitting his receivers in perfect stride. That's upside, albeit not of the physical variety.

You wrote that the Ravens and the Bucs were able to with the Super Bowl without having a top-20 QB. However, in 2002--the year the Bucs won the Super Bowl--Brad Johnson had 6.8 yards per pass attempt, a QB rating of 92.9, and threw for 22 TDs to just 6 INTs. He was invited to the Pro Bowl that year. Rock solid performance from the QB position clearly made a major contribution to the Bucs' Super Bowl win that year. I agree that the Ravens were able to win the Super Bowl despite having Trent Dilfer at QB. But to win despite substandard QB play, they had to have one of the three best defenses in NFL history. Plus they had to have a dominant offensive line, led by Hall of Fame level LT Jon Ogden. Plus they needed Jamal Lewis--he of a subsequent 2000 yard rushing season. Sure, if a team is prepared to do all that, then it can win a Super Bowl without a first-rate QB. But compare that Ravens team of 2000 with the Patriots of the 2000s. Clearly, the Ravens had assembled much better talent than the Patriots on the defensive line, linebackers, and defensive secondary. The Ravens also had the better offensive line; and especially the better LT. The Ravens had better talent at RB. Both teams were (initially) a little lackluster in terms of receiving threats; though the Patriots would later make up for that by adding guys like Randy Moss. That Patriots team, however, won three Super Bowl rings to the Ravens' one Super Bowl ring, despite the fact that the Ravens of 2000 had more talent at nearly every position than any of the Patriots of the 2000s teams had. The difference was that the Patriots had Tom Brady at QB; whereas the Ravens' best QB from the late '90s - early 2000s was, sadly enough, Trent Dilfer. (His competition for that honor included guys like Elvis Grbac and Tony Banks.) If your goal is to win the Super Bowl, your best bet is to find a top tier QB, and to surround him with as much talent as you possibly can. Sure, you can get a good record in the regular season with a good defense + good running game + below-average QB. You may even win a playoff game or two with a formula like that. But as you advance deeper into the playoffs, you become increasingly likely to encounter a team with a good defense + good offensive players + a top-tier QB. Note that in this most recent Super Bowl both the Colts (Manning) and Saints (Brees) were like that. They both had very good defenses, and their top-tier QBs were surrounded by a good amount of offensive talent. Suppose you're a team with a below-average QB going up against a complete team with a top-tier QB. Your team's inferior play from the QB position will put you at a significant disadvantage. If you want to balance out that disadvantage, your team's defense will have to solidly outplay the other team's defense. That could be difficult, because the other team's defense may well be a top-10 or even top-5 defense! The Ravens of 2000 were one of the few teams able to do this. Every player on their defensive line was the kind of guy that offenses tend to double-team. (And obviously no offense can double team all four guys!) The Ravens' linebacker corps was very good, and consisted of guys at or near a Pro Bowl level. The Ravens' secondary was a true source of strength, and had two shutdown corners to go along with very solid players at safety. A defense like that could outcompete other teams' defenses--even other teams' top-5 defenses--by a large enough margin to make up for the Ravens' disadvantage at QB. The only problem is that creating a Ravens of 2000-like defense is easier said than done.

I watched the video of that competition, and some of the things they were evaluating were stacked in favor of the QB. For example, Trent Edwards achieved a higher hand velocity than the fast draw champion. However, if your objective is to grab a gun from a holster, and shoot it from your hip, the distance your hand will travel is very small. Probably just a few inches. Such a small distance doesn't give you very much room to build up any kind of speed. But if you're throwing a football, your arm's range of motion is significantly larger. Also, the fast draw champion must stop the gun's movement--and hence his arm/hand movement--just before he fires. Conversely, the quarterback will continue moving his hand and arm after he's released the football. While the competition itself was unfair, and biased in favor of the quarterback and against the quick draw champion, I felt that Trent seemed to do reasonably well even when judged in a vacuum. On the other hand, I realize I'm judging his performance in a vacuum, and I'd be curious to see how it would compare to other NFL QBs in such a competition. Overall though, I don't think there's a particularly strong chance of Trent being a good long-term answer at QB.

Hangartnar was ranked the 32nd best starting center in the league. Clearly, that position needs an upgrade (as do a number of others). But in a way, the Bills could benefit from a poor record this season; as that record can result in a higher draft pick/better chance of getting a franchise QB, than would otherwise be the case.

Kurt Warner received an NFL tryout in 1994, with, ironically enough, the Green Bay Packers. He failed to make the final roster; and did not manage to get into the NFL until 1998. The odds of Brohm being another Warner are very slim. But not nonexistent. As Albany pointed out, quarterbacks taken in the first two rounds of the draft tend to get more attention and more opportunities than undrafted players such as Warner. However, there is reason to believe that Brohm may have received fewer opportunities, and less attention, in Green Bay, than would normally have been allocated to an early second round draft pick. First and most obvious is the fact that the Packers waived him early into his second year in the league; which basically meant he had one year and one preseason to prove himself before they got rid of him. That's not a lot of time to adjust to the NFL, at a position normally associated with a significant adjustment time. Second, and perhaps more importantly, is the fact that the Packers drafted Brohm because they had serious doubts about whether Aaron Rodgers could be the guy. Rodgers quickly erased those doubts, and the Packers evidently felt very comfortable with Flynn as a backup. Given that the Packers now felt very comfortable with both their starting and backup QBs, there was no longer the same need or same incentive to continue giving opportunities to a guy who, apparently, had proved little during his brief time in the NFL. I've heard some experts say that if Brohm had come out after his junior year, he would have likely been a top 10 draft pick. One would have expected that one of the teams which had been considering using an early pick on him would have claimed him off waivers from Green Bay. None of those teams did. Presumably, that was because of poor play on Brohm's part during the preseason, as well as the attitude that, "If Green Bay doesn't want him, why would we?" It is also possible that many of the teams which had done the most pre-draft research on Brohm had subsequently filled their respective holes at QB with other players. On the surface, Brohm's college career would seem to indicate strong potential for him. On the other hand, I've seen Starry Messenger post that Brohm's college offense only required him to make one read; which would indicate a very serious question mark about whether he could transition to an NFL level. Assuming Starry Messenger's read of the situation is correct, it would probably have made sense for most NFL teams to have written Brohm off after Green Bay waived him. On the other hand, just because Brohm wasn't asked to make multiple reads at the college level, does not necessarily mean he can't do it at the NFL level. (Though learning to do so would presumably require an adjustment period.) At present, the odds would seem to be significantly stacked against Brohm learning how to process visual information as quickly and completely as an NFL QB should be able to. But there's still a chance he'll be able to learn to do so; and the Bills lose nothing by giving him that chance. It's not as though the Bills roster is bursting with starting-caliber NFL QBs.

The argument here would be that, without government subsidies, the Bills would be more likely to move to some other location. Sure, people could still watch the Los Angeles Bills on television, or listen to said games on the radio, but how many New York State residents would really want to do that? As for the question of subsidies to professional teams in the first place--it's a tricky question. Municipalities and state governments, collectively, face a situation in which they'd collectively be better off if no one offered government subsidies to professional sports teams. But if someone else is offering a massive government subsidy to your city's sports team, then offering a subsidy of your own just became the cost of doing business. In a perfect world, there'd be a federal law against any state or local government handing out a subsidy to any professional sports teams. But such a law would raise questions about federal versus state and local government rights; as well as the NFL's anti-trust exemption. In the absence of such a law, state or local subsidies are the price one pays for retaining one's professional sports teams.

The state spending on the Bills is somewhat analogous to state spending on parks and so forth. State residents in general are free to either visit the parks, or to watch/listen to Bills games on their televisions or radios. The parallel between the two is that the state is spending money on something that is freely available to all state residents; but that might be taken advantage of by only a relatively small subset of residents. Without state subsidies, the odds of the Bills leaving New York State would increase. This category of spending (on things freely available to the public) is not at the core of New York State's fiscal problems. If our politicians showed any willingness to resolve those core financial problems, we could easily afford the things we need, while also setting aside relatively modest amounts for luxuries such as professional football teams. Instead, Albany's politicians have chosen to hack away at some of the muscle and bone of our state spending, while leaving the fat completely intact.

New York State has about 19.5 million people. A $3 million subsidy for the Bills works out to about fifteen cents per New York State resident per year. The amounts involved are too small to materially impact this state's overall financial picture. Suppose, for example, that that $3 million were to be cut off tomorrow. Given the highly visible nature of the Bills, that elimination of funding would be a showy gesture from politicians, possibly intended to convince the public that our elected officials are "doing something" about the state's fiscal problems. And that would be true, in the same sense that someone spooning water out of the Titanic would be "doing something" to stop that ship from sinking. New York State is the most heavily taxed state in the nation, which strongly suggests the fiscal problems it has are due to overspending. A debate about an inconsequential subsidy to a sports team would, I imagine, distract attention from the far larger and more meaningful sources of overspending.

I think you're right. But the Bills traded for him based not just on that one game, but also on his performance in the preseason and in college. From what I gather, he had very good play at LT--and hence good pass protection--in all of those circumstances. Which is why he wasn't known as a sack waiting to happen until after he arrived in Buffalo.

I addressed the teams each guy played on in my other post on this thread. Johnson had substandard talent at RB, and played behind a D/D- offensive line. There was an independent service that graded offensive linemen. John Fina--the second best player on that line at his position--was ranked at around 22nd best among starting LTs. I agree the Bills had better defenses back in the late '90s, but I don't believe that good defenses necessarily equate to stellar passing stats for their teams' respective QBs. Trent Dilfer, for example, averaged 6.6 yards per pass attempt with the Ravens of 2000. The next year he moved to the Seattle Seahawks--a team with a significantly worse defense--yet increased his yards per attempt to 8.3 yards. As far as Losman's stats: in 2006, he had a solid 7.1 yards per pass attempt, and a 1.4 TD/INT ratio. Things looked good for a while. But these things were achieved because the offense had been radically simplified to accommodate his mental limitations, and because he was able to burn defenses with a lot of long bombs to Lee Evans. You could point out that a TD scored off a long bomb to Evans counts just as much as any other TD, or that teams aren't awarded bonus points for running complex offenses. However, a quarterback who's a one-trick pony--as Losman was in 2006--will typically have a less promising future than a quarterback who can do a number of different things very well. (Losman's stats were also helped by the solid pass protection he received in the second half of 2006; especially from Jason Peters at LT.) In 2007 Losman's stats declined: his QB rating went from 84.9 to 76.9; his yards per attempt went from 7.1 to 6.9, and his TD/INT ratio declined to 0.7. As a (former?) Losman supporter, you might be inclined to think he just had a bad year. But I see things differently: defenses were learning that when you play Losman, you need to take away the long bomb to Lee Evans, and dare him to beat you with his underneath game. You also can't teach intelligence; which is why Losman was doomed to fail almost no matter where he ended up. And yet his career stats are slightly better than Losman's. Losman's career yards per attempt stat is 6.6; as compared to 6.7 for Edwards. Losman's career QB rating is 75.6, compared to Edwards' rating of 77.9. Both QBs have career TD/INT ratios of almost exactly 1. Losman is the more physically gifted of the two QBs; whereas Edwards is the more accurate and the more intelligent. (This is not to suggest that Edwards has the accuracy or intelligence to have a great career as a QB. On the contrary.)

This makes sense. Our offensive linemen were mobile and athletic. On a running play, a Bills offensive lineman could run very quickly to some spot pretty far away, and deliver a shove to some linebacker or someone. For that kind of run blocking, mobility and athleticism are more important than other forms of offensive lineman talent. But when the linemen were asked to stay at home and pass protect, they did poorly. It stands to reason that if they're asked to stay at home and run block (as one would typically expect in short yardage situations) that they might do poorly as well. Only downfield blocking would emphasize our offensive linemen's strengths (mobility) while minimizing their weaknesses (everything else).

#30 seems about right for this offensive line. Demetrius Bell was a train wreck as a LT--at least in pass protection--even before going down with an injury. His replacements were no better. There's no reason for anyone to give us credit for anything remotely resembling a starting LT, until such time as we prove we have one. I'll grant that the Bills are strong at both OG positions, with Levitre and Wood. But Hangartnar is the lowest-ranked starting center in the league; and we just signed the aging Cornell Green to be the starter at RT. The Raiders apparently no longer wanted him. Out of the five starting-quality players we'd like to have, I only see two (Levitre and Wood). This line has had some success in run-blocking, but thus far has done little or nothing to suggest it can pass protect. Until it begins at least a mild flirtation with credibility in the pass protection department, this line will be (and should be) among the lowest-ranked lines of the league.