Orton's Arm

I wouldn't worry too much. Parcells didn't have GM power over the Giants; which is one of the reasons they were built into a Super Bowl winner. If you look at the places where he was GM, you'll typically see teams that got good in a hurry, but were never able to advance past the first or second round of the playoffs. They had too many limitations. And you can see those same kinds of limitations getting built into that current Dolphins team--for example with his choice of Long over Matt Ryan. Those Giants teams won two Super Bowls with Parcells as coach. The first was with Phil Simms (chosen 7th overall) at QB. The second--against the Bills --was with Jeff Hostetler. But even though Hostetler was only a third round pick, he had a very solid career average of 7.0 yards per passing attempt, with a career passer rating of 80.2. Plus that team had Lawrence Taylor; not to mention Bill Belichick! Having a player like that, with a defensive coordinator like that, is decidedly not a good thing for opposing offenses! Parcells is likely to fall short of building a team like that in Miami; just as he'd fallen short with the Jets and Cowboys.

It all depends on what your objectives are. If you want to have a solid, respectable team, making those kinds of decisions will be okay. But if you want to win the Super Bowl, odds are you're going to need more than just a game manager at quarterback. Look at the Steelers back when they had Neil O'Donnell at quarterback. That team had a solid offensive line, a good to very good running game, a very good defense, and even a solid game manager of a quarterback in the form of Neil O'Donnell. As far as not turning the ball over--O'Donnell typically had the fewest interceptions per pass attempt of any quarterback in the league. He was about as good as game managing quarterbacks are going to get. But despite its talent, and despite the coaching of Bill Cowher, that team didn't come away with any Super Bowl rings. That team would make the playoffs most (all?) years, sometimes advance a round or two, but eventually would get eliminated. That's what happens when you follow a Parcells strategy: your team will be solid, but is very unlikely to come away with a Super Bowl win. If Parcells remains the Dolphins' GM for the next few years, he'll probably build them into a team like the O'Donnell-era Steelers. They'll have a good offensive line, a good defense, and will be consistently respectable. But they won't get any Super Bowl rings. Especially because it's far from clear that Henne will be as good a QB as O'Donnell was!

In his first year of general manager for the Dolphins, Parcells found himself in need of both a quarterback and a left tackle. Picking first overall, he chose the left tackle. Matt Ryan fell to #3 overall, where he was taken by the Falcons. Parcells now has his left tackle. But how many more opportunities is he going to have to draft Matt Ryan's like again? The quarterback he does have--Henne-seems okay. But he's no Matt Ryan. Parcells is likely to run that team well enough that he will have very few picks in the top 10--and none in the top 5--ever again while he's the general manager. The Dolphins are likely to be limited by the kind of play they'll be getting from the quarterback position. They'll win some games, make it to the postseason on occasion, and maybe even win a game or two while they're there. But they won't win a Super Bowl. The Bills should not make the same mistake Parcells made. If Clausen is a franchise quarterback, the Bills should take him. Period.

I looked up the recent Super Bowl winners. 1998. Broncos. John Elway. 1999. Broncos. John Elway. 2000. Rams. Kurt Warner. Hall of Famer. 2001. Ravens. Trent Dilfer. 2002. Patriots. Brady. 2003. Bucs. Brad Johnson. A solid player. 2004. Patriots. Brady again! 2005. Patriots again. Brady again! 2006. Steelers. Roethlisberger--a very good QB! 2007. Colts. Peyton Manning. An even better QB! 2008. Giants. Eli Manning. Had a really good year that year! 2009. Steelers. Roethlisberger. 2010. Saints. Drew Brees. Super Bowls won by teams with first ballot Hall of Fame QBs 7. (Elway x 2) + Warner + (Brady x 3) + Peyton Manning. Super Bowls won by teams with QBs playing near a Hall of Fame level: 3. Brees + (Roethlisberger x 2) Super Bowls won by teams with quarterbacks having a really good year: 1. Eli Manning. Super Bowls won by teams with above-average quarterbacks: 1 (Brad Johnson) Super Bowls won by teams with mediocre quarterbacks: 1 (Trent Dilfer). I'll be the first to say that a good quarterback deserves and really benefits from a good offensive line. And that the Bills have traditionally neglected their offensive line on draft day--which is inexcusable. But the above data are clear: a good offensive line, alone, is not enough for a Super Bowl win. You're going to need that franchise quarterback! It makes sense to take him early in the rebuilding process for two reasons: 1) it takes a while for a quarterback to develop, and 2) early in the process, your draft picks are likely to be higher than they'll become after your team has gotten stronger. Because the quarterback is the single hardest piece of the puzzle to fill, it makes sense to use a top 10 pick on him, if possible. (As opposed to using a top 10 pick on, say, a backup SS.)

Agreed. If the Bills wanted to have that kind of defense, they'd have to find upgrades at literally every starting position on the defense. The Ravens of 2000 had a ridiculously good defensive line--the kind where you'd want to double team each of the four guys on it if you could. (Which you obviously can't.) Their linebacking corps, led by Ray Lewis, was first-rate. They had two lockdown CBs that would outplay opposing receivers. At safety they had guys like Ed Reed. That defense was just ridiculously good! But note that even with a defense that could only be compared to the Steel Curtain of the '70s and the '85 Bears, the Ravens won only one Super Bowl. That demonstrates that the strategy of good defense + good running game + good special teams has to be executed almost perfectly in order to result in a Super Bowl win. If there was margin for error with that strategy, the Ravens would have won multiple Super Bowls with the ridiculous amount of talent they had. Teams with elite-level quarterbacks, on the other hand, are often associated with multiple Super Bowl wins.

Yes, the Ravens of 2000 won the Super Bowl with that philosophy. But to do so, they needed to put together one of the three best defenses in NFL history, and they had Jonathan Ogden at LT (who arguably played at or near a Hall of Fame level), and they had Jamal Lewis with his 2000 rushing yards. So yeah. If you can put together a defense, an offensive line, and a RB as good as the ones the Ravens had, then you don't necessarily need a spectacular QB to win the Super Bowl. The thing is that teams with Ravens of 2000-like defenses don't come along very often; which is why Super Bowl wins are typically associated with quarterbacks playing at or near a Hall of Fame level. This past Super Bowl, for example, both Drew Brees and Peyton Manning played very well throughout the season for their respective teams.

A good running game is a lot more effective when coupled with a good passing game. If teams gang up on the run, you beat them with the pass. And if they gang up on the pass, you beat them with the run. The Bills were effective in the Glory Years because when teams put seven men in the box, we could slice them apart with Thurman. And if they started putting more men in the box to stop the run, Jim Kelly could go to any number of excellent weapons to beat teams with the passing game. A team with a good defense and a one-dimensional, run-oriented offense can often win a lot of regular season games, and can sneak its way into the playoffs. Maybe it can even win a game or two while it's there, as the Ravens and Jets teams recently did. But sooner or later, teams like that will typically run into better, more complete teams that use both the running game and the passing game to put enormous pressure on defenses. At that point, the teams without good passing attacks will generally get eliminated; as the Jets were when they faced Peyton Manning, and as the Ravens were.

Someone on these boards did an analysis recently which showed that, of the quarterbacks playing at a good-to-elite level right now, almost all of them were taken in the first 33 picks of the draft. The Tom Brady's of the world are rare exceptions. As for the Troy Aikman statistic you mentioned: there are a lot of reasons for that. Let's look at the teams that won the Super Bowl since the Cowboys won in '96. '97 Packers won with Favre. They acquired him through trade--a 2nd rounder I believe--when he was a young, unproven player. '98 & '99. Broncos won with Elway. Elway was initially taken first overall by some other team--I don't remember which--but held out, and became a Bronco before he'd played a down with that other team. 2000: Rams with Warner at QB. Kurt Warner stories are very rare, but this was one of them. 2001: Ravens with Dilfer at QB. Clearly, that team won despite its passing game, not because of it. 2002: Patriots with Brady at QB. Tom Brady stories are very rare, but this was one of them. 2003: Tampa Bay Bucs with Brad Johnson at QB. While they got solid (but not great) play from the QB position, that team won because of its defense. 2004 - 2005. More Patriots wins. Apparently the Tom Brady story has more than one chapter. 2006 Steelers with Roethlisberger at QB. Taken in the first round, I might add! 2007: Colts with Manning at QB. Another guy taken in the first round! 2008: NY Giants with Eli Manning at QB. Taken first overall, but was traded to the Giants before he'd played a down for the Chargers. 2009: Another SB win by the Roethlisberger-led Steelers. 2010: Saints, with Brees as QB. So basically, the statistic you cited was an anomaly. That anomaly was caused by several factors: 1) teams trading away early draft picks for young, unproven quarterbacks. (Favre, Elway, and Eli Manning.) This is a lot like drafting quarterbacks with early picks; but is treated differently for the purposes of that Aikman statistic. 2) The fact that, between them, Kurt Warner and Tom Brady led their teams to four Super Bowl wins. How many undrafted free agents can you name that have played anywhere nearly as well as Kurt Warner? How many second day draft picks over the last 15 years have been remotely in Tom Brady's neighborhood? Both those guys are exceptions; but they're exceptions that have collected a lot of Super Bowl rings over the years! 3) The fact that some teams won because of their defenses, with their offenses being an afterthought. (Ravens and Bucs.) A team like that doesn't need elite play from the QB position--a Trent Dilfer is enough. Those three anomalies account for ten of the Super Bowls on the above list. And as you noted, first round QBs have once again started leading their teams to Super Bowl wins--Roethlisberger and Peyton Manning being recent examples.

There are elements in this post which are untrue. I looked up a few mocks to see where they had Maybin pegged. The Walter Football mock had Maybin going 18th overall. (Depressingly enough, it also had the Bills taking Oher.) FWIW, KD's mock draft also had Maybin going 18th overall to Denver. The Draft King mock draft had Maybin going 10th overall to San Francisco. He was also taken 10th overall in Mel Kiper's mock draft. The next mock draft I found through my Google search had Maybin falling to #23 overall, where he was taken by the Patriots. Depressingly enough, that draft also had the Bills taking Oher!! The following draft had Maybin at #12--one pick after the Bills--which it felt would take Oher! Maybe we should put these mock draft people in charge of our front office! (Just kidding, Buddy is better than them, even if Brandon wasn't.) The Total Pro Sports draft had Maybin at #25, where he was taken by the Dolphins. The above paragraph represents the first mocks that appeared in my Google search, and I did not attempt to weed out mocks based on any other factors. Based on those mocks, it's safe to say that Maybin did not--in the eyes of the mock draft people, at least--represent a Donte Whitner-style reach. But neither is it the case that Maybin was universally seen as top-half-of-the-first material (though most mock drafts had him in the top 18).

Trading away Marshawn Lynch makes perfect sense. Let's look at this from a coldly rational view: Lynch has perhaps three or four good years left, and he's on a team that won't be ready to advance deep into the playoffs for another three years. If we can get something decent in exchange for him--ideally a second round pick--we should pull the trigger. I'd be very tempted to make that deal even for a third round pick. Trading Lynch now does not materially weaken the 2013 roster, because he's unlikely to be contributing much to those future teams anyway. On the other hand, the draft pick we might acquire for Lynch could be an important part of the teams the Bills will field in 2013 and beyond. Buddy Nix is widely seen as one of the top 5 talent evaluators in the NFL, so he's likely to be able to do a lot with a decent draft pick. Not that every pick will be a success. But the more and better draft picks we give him, the more successes he will have!

Marv got his start in coaching as a special teams guy; so it's perhaps no surprise that they were emphasized so much while he was GM. For whatever reason, he seemed better able to find players well-suited to special teams than guys who could play offense or defense. That lack even includes defensive backs--which you would have thought would have been a Marv/Jauron strong point. Marv's track record includes such misses as Donte Whitner, Ashton Youbody, and Ko "I'm worth millions" Simpson.

1. Mental bandwidth. By this I mean the ability to process large amounts of information quickly and react accordingly. I've read that it takes Bledsoe over a full second longer to see what Tom Brady sees. A high mental bandwidth QB is able to see his second, third, and fourth reads very quickly, and to diagnose where he's supposed to put the football in very short order. 2. Accuracy. This is a ridiculously important trait for a QB to have. 3. Timing. By this I mean the ability to hit a receiver in perfect stride, much like Joe Montana did when he was playing. Very few QBs are good at this; yet it's an important enough trait that I've separated it out from accuracy. 4. Character. By this I mean work ethic, dedication to the game of football, and a passion for winning. (I'll admit that's a little different than the usual definition of character.) All the ability in the world (described above) won't do you any good unless you apply it. 5. Durability. To some extent this is part of #4--if a guy is passionate about football, he's going to want to play through his more minor injuries. But there's also physical and mental toughness, both of which are important enough to deserve their own category. Also, part of being durable is knowing when it's just not worthwhile to take physical punishment. (Part of the reason for Rob Johnson's failure was that he was bad at that.) 6. Leadership. I hate putting leadership so low down on this list. But realistically, if a guy plays well, is passionate about the game, and clearly has talent, he's going to get a certain amount of respect in the locker room even if he's not the most verbally gifted guy in the world. That said, leadership is important. Getting your teammates to believe in themselves, and to pay their best, is a useful thing for a quarterback to be able to do! 7. Arm strength. Clearly, every quarterback needs a certain minimum amount of arm strength to succeed. One could argue that this minimum is higher in Buffalo than elsewhere because of our bad weather. Additional arm strength is also nice to have; though it is far from being the end-all be-all some fans seem to think. 90+% of a quarterback's potential resides between his ears. 8. Mobility. When a quarterback has the ability to use his legs to get out of trouble, it's a nice bonus. Note, however, that a quarterback with high mental bandwidth can get out of trouble by getting rid of the ball in a hurry; which tends to be a more consistently effective strategy than taking off and running with it. But the option of either running, or rolling out and then throwing, is definitely a nice plan B to have! 9. Experience. Maybe this should be higher on the list. You'd want a quarterback to have considerable experience at the college level both to help develop him, and to give your team the chance to evaluate him. But getting a guy with lots of professional experience should not necessarily be a priority right now. We need a younger player who will be with us for many long years to come, not some seasoned veteran a few years from retirement. 10. Bad weather ability/experience. If a guy has the above traits, playing in bad weather shouldn't be a problem for him. Even if he hasn't done it before. Favre grew up in Mississippi and played in a warm weather school in college. He's done okay in a few bad weather games since then. But that's because he's mentally tough enough that bad weather doesn't intimidate him, and because he has good arm strength and really big hands with which to grip the ball, and because he has all the other tools he needs to be a really successful QB.

At least with Garcia we wouldn't be trading away draft picks. Which makes acquiring him a better option than McNabb. (Not that that's saying much.)

I disagree with your choice of quarterback. In every game Holcomb played from start to finish, the Bills offense produced at least 14 points. That's not too shabby, considering that he often played without a running game and without an offensive line. He averaged 6.6 yards per pass attempt while in Buffalo; as opposed to Donovan McNabb's career average of 6.9 yards per attempt. Relatively late in the 4th quarter, in a game against the Patriots, Holcomb engineered a drive that would have resulted in the Bills taking the lead. He'd just completed a critical third down pass to Moulds, to get the Bills 1st and ten. But then the officials called a ticky-tack pass interference call on Moulds to turn first and ten into fourth and eleven. Then the Bills' braintrust--such as it was--decided that, on the ensuing 4th and 11 play, a rookie named Roscoe Parrish should be the primary target, Moulds a decoy. Holcomb threw it to Moulds well short of the first down, because his offensive coordinator's plan had failed, and the diminutive Parrish was double covered. Holcomb wasn't beaten by just the Patriots. He was beaten by the Patriots plus the officials plus his own team's offensive coordinator. I mean, even if for some ungodly reason Parrish is the primary target on that play, why not at least have Moulds run past the first down marker? But the point here is that Holcomb had played well enough for 3+ quarters, against the Patriots, in Foxboro, that that late fourth quarter drive actually mattered. Over the last ten years, the Bills' fourth quarter drives haven't mattered very often when they've faced the Patriots. There's no way an unheralded, bargain basement free agent like Holcomb should be the guy on this list when, over the past decade, the offense has seen first round busts like Losman, offensive linemen such as Melvin Fowler, Tuten Reyes, Greg Jerman, Derrick Dockery, Langston Walker, Trey Teague, Chris Villarrial, Mike Williams, tight ends like Robert Royal, and other overpaid, abysmal failures.

Offense: JP Losman Defense: Donte Whitner

The reason why Bears fans see their franchise as the most dysfunctional is because of this man.

I'd say that it would be wiser and more prudent to not let the team be run by the fans and the media! Rookie quarterbacks belong on the bench, period. That goes double if the line is a mess.

First, I divide seasons into two categories: 1) those that end in Super Bowl wins, and 2) those that don't. I'm interested in maximizing the probability of a category 1 season, and not all that interested in making fine distinctions between the various gradations of category 2 seasons. What do the Bills have to do to build themselves into a Super Bowl winner? First, let's look at the existing talent they have on both sides of the ball. On defense, their young, good talent in the front 7 currently consists of Kyle Williams and Poz. There are five positions in the front 7 which are either inadequately filled, or filled with aging veterans who will soon need to be replaced. The defensive secondary shouldn't have serious needs for a few years. On offense, the Bills need to re-sign Incognito and move Wood to center. With an interior line of Levitre, Wood, and Incognito, the Bills' offensive line needs would consist of LT (gaping hole) and arguably RT (though they can get by with Butler if they have to). In addition to help at OT, the offense needs a QB and a #1 WR. To summarize this, the team needs the following: QB LT #1 WR RT (sort of) NT RDE Rushing OLB OLB ILB You'll notice that a lot of those positions--including QB, LT, NT, and RDE--are at the elite, hardest-to-fill areas, where you'd typically expect to have to use a top-10 draft pick to get a very good player. It's not like the Bills are short on OGs, for example, where you could plug in some guy from the lower first round and expect to get a consistent Pro Bowler. Filling all of these needs--or even enough of them to win the Super Bowl--within one to two years' time is not a realistic goal. It will probably not be until year 3 of the rebuilding process that the Bills will have turned their existing holes into sources of strength. But in three years time, how well will McNabb really be playing? Even if the answer is "very well," how many more years would that remain the case? As you pointed out, you typically need good to elite play from the QB position to be a serious threat to win the Super Bowl. (Teams with defenses as good as the Ravens of 2000 are exceptions.) If the Bills were to trade for McNabb, then in years 1 and 2 of the project, the Bills would be kept out of the Super Bowl due to the overall team weaknesses described above. In years 3 and 4--as those weaknesses were being corrected--the Bills would be kept out of the Super Bowl by declining play at the QB position. They would then be faced with the task of trying to get their QB of the future at a time when their strength at other positions would keep them out of the top 10 of the draft.

Other teams complain that corners are hard to come by. And do you know why that is? It's because they're all here!! All of them!! Jauron took every last one, leaving the rest of the league bare. If cornerbacks are the other teams' Christmas presents, you can call Jauron the Grinch! If Jauron was still here, he'd see Cromartie as one of the very few Christmas presents that had somehow managed to elude his Grinch-like grasp. He'd snatch that CB away from the Chargers in a heartbeat! However, given that Jauron is gone, and that his replacements probably don't believe that the statement "you can never have too many corners" is true in its literal sense, I don't think this trade will happen.

Seattle traded a draft pick for Hasselbeck at a time when he was a young, unproven player. That's very similar to drafting a player in terms of risk, upside, and--most importantly--the player's potential for remaining in the league for many years to come. The other quarterbacks you mentioned were signed in free agency. Brad Johnson and Trent Dilfer went to teams with very good to elite defenses, that just needed some semblance of offense to get them over the top. In none of the cases you mentioned did a relatively talentless, rebuilding team trade away a high draft pick for an aging veteran as some sort of springboard to building a "culture of winning." If you're a rebuilding team, trading away your earliest draft picks for aging vets is not the first step toward turning yourself into a Super Bowl winner!! The Bills need their most valuable draft picks to turn into long-term answers at their respective positions. They cannot afford to do another Bledsoe trade (which is what McNabb would be). Not at this stage, when the team is so devoid of young talent.

By that statement I take it you mean that you've been pleased by guys like Byrd, Wood, and Levitre. Our first round picks over the last decade or so have been disappointments. 2000: Erik Flowers. Result: bust 2001: Nate Clements. Result: first contract and out. 2002: Mike Williams. Result: none. 2003a: traded for Drew Bledsoe. Result: released after three years. 2003b: Willis McGahee. Result: traded for two third round picks. 2004a: Lee Evans. Result: a good #2 WR. 2004b: You-know-who. Result: a championship!! (For the Las Vegas Locomotives.) 2005: none 2006a: Donte Whitner. Result: a backup SS. 2006b: John McCargo. Result: a backup DT. 2007: Marshwawn Lynch. Result: a backup RB. 2008: Leodis McKelvin. Result: too soon to tell. 2009a: Aaron Maybin. Result: a project which has yet to yield any results. 2009b: Eric Wood. Result: a good OG.

I agree with your premise--that it will likely take a rookie QB two to three years to develop. But to me, that's one more reason why it makes sense to get the quarterback sooner rather than later. (Assuming the right guy is there.) The goal is not to get good right away!! The Bills don't have the talent to be an immediate Super Bowl threat. The goal is to be as good as possible starting in two to three years, with as much young, good talent on board as possible. The Bills' window of doing something dangerous in the playoffs will open after those two to three years (if they're well-run between now and then). The only thing that matters between now and then is getting the players we'll need in two to three years' time.

I agree that it would be a serious mistake for this team to trade away first day draft picks for an aging veteran player at any position. The Bills are in rebuilding mode, and should be focused on ways to increase the pace at which they acquire young talent. Trading down for McNabb is also in that same general category. If our goal is to trade down in the draft, our compensation should be draft picks, not some aging player who's only going to be good for a very short window.

To me, only one factor plays into the decision about whether to trade up for Clausen: whether he's good enough to be a franchise QB. Whether the Bills do or don't have other needs--even on the offensive line, or at NT--doesn't play into it at all. Let me put it to another way: once a team acquires a young, franchise QB, under what circumstances would it be willing to part with him? If you had a young Peyton Manning on your team and a lousy line, would you trade Manning away for a couple offensive linemen? Would you trade him away for a nose tackle; or even a nose tackle plus a LT? If it were me, then under almost no conceivable set of circumstances would I trade that franchise QB away. Over the long term, an opportunity to acquire a franchise QB is a lot more valuable than any other single player acquisition opportunity this team may encounter. I'm not familiar enough with Clausen to know whether he's that franchise-level QB we need. But if he is, we spend whatever draft picks we need to spend to get him. Once he's on board, he should spend his rookie year on the bench. Especially if some incompetent like Bell is still manning the LT position. Rebuilding is a multi-year process. Getting our franchise QB in place would, alone, be enough of an achievement for one year.

No argument there! But if you were going to build a skyscraper, you'd begin with a blueprint of what you wanted that building to look like when it was finished. You would direct all your efforts to reaching the specs laid out on the blueprint, and would not allow yourself to become distracted by anything outside the blueprint. One of the reasons why the Bills have consistently failed to build a Super Bowl winner is that, in the post-Polian era, we have not used the blueprint approach. Did anyone really think that trading away a third round pick for Billy Joe Hobart would lead to elite play at the quarterback position? Or what about the first round pick we traded for an aging Drew Bledsoe? Did anyone truly believe that Bledsoe--whose play in New England had been run of the mill in the years immediately leading up to the trade--would be playing at an elite level by the time the Bills were able to assemble a complete team around him? Or what about the 2nd round pick for Travis Henry? The RB position is associated with short careers, and yet Henry was drafted at the beginning of TD's rebuilding process. Ditto the Marshawn Lynch pick near the beginning of Marv's rebuilding process. The Bills don't have a franchise quarterback on their roster. That means that they should not invest draft day resources in the quarterback position, unless the guy they're investing in has serious potential to play at an elite level over a long period of time. If the latter is the case, they should be willing to pay almost any price at all to get him; because the franchise QB is both the most critical, and hardest to acquire, single piece of the puzzle.