BobChalmers

So if he's GONE (to Denver) now what?

Mike Mayock - who is generally a pretty decent evaluator - has Locker as his number 2 QB in the whole draft - right behind Gabbert. If you believe that, taking with the 2nd rounder looks plenty smart. Uhm no, Mallet is Bledsoe 2.0. For good or ill, Locker plays absolutely nothing like Bledsoe.

Sorry - you lost most of the board with that first sentence. Seriously - you're raising a great point: Our LB play last year was epic bad. I could see them going with Dareus as a DE though. They need the next Patrick Wills more than anything - sadly there doesn't appear to be one in the draft. As for OLB - Nix's comments still seem to be pointing at Merriman and Moats as the reasons they will be better at OLB in 2011 than they were in 2010. I still have no idea what position Kelsay is really supposed to play in a 3-4.

I'd find it a lot scarier if we had a GM who was giving up on his top picks every year and starting over with more picks at the same position. There has been a GM like that in the NFL recently - his name was Matt Millen. Your mileage may vary, but most view him as the worst GM ever.

So this just in: Buddy Nix isn't prepared to give up on his 2nd rounder last season not becoming a strong starter at his only position - NT. Yeah - like I've been saying for a while - whatever people on this board think about our DL, Nix just invested the lion's share of last offseason to upgrade it (Troup, Carrington, Dwan Edwards) - he's not about to do that all over again just so last year's acquisitions can ride the bench. They might go DE given that Stroud's gone - but they'll have to find a spot for Kelsay, Edwards, and Carrington. If they don't think Williams is moving to DE (and maybe even if they do move him), there is no freaking way they take Dareus or Fairley. I wouldn't rule out Bowers/Quinn if they think they can play OLB and aren't convinced Merriman can come back, but more likely Miller, Green, Gabbert, or Peterson - whichever they see as this year's Spiller (BPA).

So does that mean you know who the dominant QB is we're supposed to take? If Luck were in there, he'd be the right pick, and Carolina would take him before us. You really believe Newton's got enough of a track record as a passer to convince you he's worth #3? Are you sure it's Gabbert? Are you sure it's not Mallet, Locker, or Ponder - any of whom we could draft later? You sure you wouldn't rather just try and upgrade the league's worst run defense?

What I don't understand in this line of thinking is the notion that the team can't do two things at once, or that changing the uniforms is actually costing them money - much less enough money that it would impact who they hire. Is it your contention that while Russ Brandon and the marketing team are settling on new uniforms it is somehow impairing Buddy and Chan and the scouting department in their ability to decide who to draft or pick up in free agency?? It's as if people think they only have a dozen employees at OBD or something.

Very true. Can't agree, on multiple counts. From what we've gathered: - They're going back to white helmets. (Perhaps the curse of Joe Ferguson will be lifted. ) - The Royal Blue is much nicer with the Red and White than the Navy. - They won't have those ridiculous Navy Blue shoulder whatever-they-are on the away Whites. The reason was Coach Gregg "BS" Williams caving to his players' idiot fashion sense. It was a player decision years ago. I have no idea why the team (or the league) went along with it. They had damned-well better. Honestly, you don't have to be obsessed to be excited about this as a Bills fan. Not just locals, but national (ie generic fans/reporters) have universally labeled the Bills' current uniforms the league's worst, and almost as universally called their throw-backs among the very best. Anyone with any sense of style can see it. If we have to watch them play ugly, at least they could dress like they aren't incompetent. And, heck, who knows, maybe the upgraded image will rub off on their play after a while.

It certainly was our biggest weakness last season. You have to decide if Buddy believes he has Merriman at one of the spots, and Moats covering the other. That was the OP's take, and it's not unreasonable, though betting on Merriman seems like one heck of a gamble.

Yeah - Trent was famous for his lightning quick release in his first couple of years. He was dramatically quick compared to Losman and Bledsoe who preceded him, but his quick release was also the first thing all the national pundits lauded about him. What he lost was his confidence to scan the field and his receivrers to get open, so his quick releases were all to short-range targets, and teams could crowd those out after a while, leaving him nothing. Fitz is quick enough, but that's not why he was an upgrade. If he could get more accurate he could be excellent. That's a heck of a big "if" though.

I agree, but the real problem for that now is that the media experts are expecting Carolina to take Gabbert at #1 so it may be a moot point what the Bills think of him. They'll probably take the best available front-7 defender (though I'd be OK with AJ Green too).

And. in fact, Gailey specifically said (you can find the video on the bills site) they weren't going to use interview time at the combine on the players he already knows from the Senior Bowl - Game-MVP Ponder being high on that list. Mayock has Locker as his #2 QB. Right between Gabbert at #1 and Newton at #3.

Makes more sense - but Carolina taking Gabbert is becoming the consensus so it may be moot as well. Newton's "stock" clearly fell at the combine. The bits I saw of him I was impressed by his throws, but apparently his overall accuracy was poor. Given that Auburn's offense was all about running the ball, it's hard to make picking him so high seem like anything other than a huge gamble at best. My gut feeling - that Gailey liked the kids he coached and won with at the Senior Bowl and wants to take at least two of them - Von Miller and Christian Ponder.

Same here - the trade is great - and I'm another FSU grad/fan who thinks Ponder is good, not great, and #38 would feel too high for him unless there's a real run on QB's. I like him as a character, I wish him well, but I don't want the Bills to reach for him. I'd probably rather see Mallet or Kaerpernick (spelling mangled no doubt) there.

LB Ours were putrid last year. Poz gets hurt all the time. Right now we're counting on Merriman, Moats, and Kelsay at OLB. Yikes. We're 2 or 3 LB's away from not being an embarrassment on defense. Fitz (who I was never a fan of) did a pretty solid jod, and is still young himself.

It's not "soft" - it's smart. Competing for players with the other teams is not at all like competing on the football field. Being "tough" or trying/working harder only gets you so far. This sort of competition for players is more of a economics process - not the $$ of it, but the awareness of supply/demand for a set of resources. There are several perfectly good pro football defenses. 3-4 for sure, but teams have done very well (recently) in defense playing various Tampa-2 4-3's as well as more traditional 4-3's. Top 5 defenses (scoring): 2010: 3-4, 3-4, 3-4, 4-3(t2), 4-3 2009: 3-4, 3-4, 3-4, 4-3(b), 3-4 2008: 3-4, 4-3, 3-4, 4-3, 4-3 2007: 4-3(t2), 3-4, 4-3(t2), 3-4, 3-4 2006: 3-4, 3-4, 4-3(t2), 4-3, 4-3 While it's true there's been a lot of 3-4 at the top, it's also worth noting that the Ravens were in the top 5 in all of those years, and the Steelers and Patriots each 4 of the 5. In other words - it's hard to tell if it's scheme or just front-office skills. Having the best talent with the right body types to play the positions you need is more important than the effective differences between playing a 3-4, a Tampa-2, a basic 4-3, a "46" 4-3, etc. They all have worked and can still work - they just demand different players. We've had 3 schemes with the Bills in the last decade+. The Bills were one of the first 3-4's - way back to the 80's all the way until Gregg Williams came in and switched us to essentially the "46" 4-3 scheme he had success with in Houston/Tennessee. Before he showed up, we had a top defense with a surplus of giant NT's such that Wade was actually lining up Pat Williams and Sam Adams together in the "Elephant 3-4" which was famously impossible to run up the middle against. The big immediate difference, you may recall, was that his aggressive 4-3 demanded superb CB's that could handle single man coverage most of the time, and we drafted Clements accordingly. It was all about pass-rush and penetration, attacking every gap. Jauron switched us to a Tampa-2 - a defense that among other things, demands much less man-coverage of the corners, and promptly demonstrated his incompetence by drafting a series of round 1 DB's anyway. The smaller DL's went along with that scheme - prompting us to draft Whitner over Ngata because "Ngata was too slow". Sigh. The scheme works a lot better when you have a freakish athlete like Brian Urlacher who can both pass-cover a lot of space in the middle of the field AND be big and fast enough to blow up the run. Poz isn't Urlacher. The bottom line to the "economic" model of this - there are only a fixed number of players coming up from college at a given talent level who are built for the specialized roles of a given scheme. If you're one of a few teams that uses a particular scheme, you will be in a much better position to pick and choose the most talented college players to handle the duties of that scheme.

But you ignored my Esiason/Aikman comparison - two QB's of similar eras. Boomer got to one SB and lost. Aikman won (3? off the top of my head) mostly handing off to Smith. Esiason's stats were clearly better. One is in the hall, the other is not. My point is - winning Super Bowls - or in Jim Kelly's case - the incredible feat of going to 4 straight - is #1 reason HOW you get into the HoF asw a QB. So arguing HoF QB's get you to the SB is a circular argument. Bradshaw was one of the best of his era with a 70.9 rating? The guy I watched mostly heaved it up to a pair of awesome WR's and handed it off behind a great line to a great RB that rarely played from behind because they had the best defense of their era. But maybe I'm just confused from my youth: so I looked up some other guys I remember watching. Ken Anderson: TD-INT 197-160 Yards 32,838 QB Rating 81.9 No SB wins No HoF Much better than TB Joe Ferguson: TD-INT 196-209 Yards 29,817 QB Rating 68.4 No SB's No HoF A little worse than TB Bert Jones: TD-INT 124-101 Yards 18,190 QB Rating 78.2 No SB's No HoF Much better stats but not the longevity Rodger Staubach: TD-INT 153-109 Yards 22,700 QB Rating 83.4 SB's HoF Much better than TB but not the longevity Bob Griese: TD-INT 192-172 Yards 25,092 QB Rating 77.1 Perfect Season, SB, HoF Look - ratings were mostly lower back then - clearly - I'm not trying to put Bradshaw down, but it's also clear he was a piece of that Steeler machine, not the key component. He was pretty good - the rest of the team was sick. The reason he was an instant Hall of Fame pick is because they won - not because of his specific role in their winning. QB's get the credit/blame for wins/losses and SB's are the ultimate wins and losses - but that's the credit in the public/press eye - not the same as being the actual reason for the wins and losses. I'm inclined to seperate the perception from the reality on this topic. The topic question was where do the wins actually come from, and the problem with using the Hall of Fame as a benchmark for quarterbacks, is that for that position it's based as much on team wins as it is on the individual real contribution of the player.

So your plan for improving is to keep drafting the same 2 positions in round 2 and 3??? And this gets us ahead now?? After you take a rookie QB who will probably be on the bench for at least a year. And in their 3-4, Dwan Edwards, Torrell Troupe, and Alex Carrington are now on the bench? I'm assuming you're letting Kyle Williams stick around, right? So basically in your construction, 4 of our 4 top personnel moves last season (picks 1,2,3 and top FA signing) resulted in backup players. Awesome. Meanwhile, the team doesn't improve at LB, TE, OL, WR?? Arguably every one of those a position of need greater than DL or QB.

What the heck does "overrated" even mean for a 2nd round pick who just finished his second season (and was hurt for the start of his first??? I'm pretty sure he rates another season or two before we give up on yet another high draft pick as a starter. I gather you're also thinking we need a new NT since it's been a whole year and last year's second round pick didn't impress you either?

How many times do we need to hear this before we consider that maybe switching to a 3-4 when it's trendy and every other NFL team is looking for the same players may have been a dumb idea? Be the first on the next trend - not the late bandwagon jumper. That's how you get an edge with schemes. We jumped on the Tampa-2 when it was trendy too.

And you don't think that winning super bowls had something to do with them being named to the Hall of Fame??? Aikman, for example, though he was a #1 overall pick - didn't have such great numbers during the regular season. Without the SB wins, there is no way he makes the HoF. His career stats: http://www.nfl.com/players/profile?id=AIK553722 are nothing special - Boomer Esiason, for example had better, and you don't even hear his name come up for the Hall. Aikman was never the NFL MVP. Elway is one of the most bogus examples. The Broncos were humiliated in the Super Bowl when Elway was the key to their offense. Later, when he was long past his prime and his job was to hand the ball to Terrell Davis - the 1998 regular season MVP - they won the Super Bowl over Brett Favre. Terry Bradshaw's career stats would get him cut even from the Bills today. 212/210 TD/INT; <28000yds, QB rating of 70.9!! He did win four Super Bowls "leading" one of the best teams ever. Does that make him why the Steelers won?? In fact, it's almost impossible for a QB to make the Hall of Fame w/o a ring. Your consideration of the regular season team ranks has merit. Claiming indivdual QB's being "Hall of Famers" as the reason the team got to/won Super Bowls is a circular argument with no merit.

Is this Newton before testing positve for mercury-poisoning? I'm going with him at #1. None of the stuff that follows happens w/o Newton inventing calculus. Tough call between Einstein and Maxwell at #2/#3. Gallileo deserves some love as a tough "gamer", but he doesn't have the same upside. Archimedes played in a different era - hard to evaluate how he'd have stood up against the more "modern" stars you mention, but he was definitely a baller who I think would still make an impact today.

THANK YOU The Bills-fans insistance on believing everyone else in the league is doing everything better the Bills is just boring, and in many cases, such as much of this thread, actually just plain uninformative. The Bills were devastated by injuries last year, which is the only reason they bothered with a player that another bad team - StL - had already dumped mid-season. As the numbers above nicely illustrate, the Bills have a better OL than the Dolphins, and they're young and improving.

Sorry - the red helmets have been pathetic ever since they started wearing them in the vain hope of getting Fergie to stop throwing so many INT's. They look awful. Breaking news from 1981??? Patsies haven't worn white helmets in a while, Dorkington.

I think this is overstated, but unless you are saying KW is a DE now, I still don't get where we play Solai, Troupe, and KW on the same 3-4 defense they say they are committed to.