Cash

Thigpen played pretty well as a spot starter for Gailey at KC a couple years back, so it made sense to sign him. However, training camp and preseason showed that Thigpen had completely lost whatever magic he had. I don't think he gets into a game unless it's a blowout or Fitz is simply too hurt to take the field. If the Bills draft a QB who looks good in camp, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see Thigpen cut. I think the only thing keeping him on the team is that he is an NFL veteran who has started games before, and that brings some value over a guy off the street or Levi Brown.

Well, yeah, of course it's hindsight. BPA stands for "Best Player Available." As it turns out, the best player available was Jason Pierre-Paul. They don't give out trophies for most pre-season Super Bowl predictions, they give out a trophy for actually winning the Super Bowl. After the fact. Similarly, drafts should not be judged on "good idea at the time" criteria, but by how those players actually turned out. Using hindsight. Hindsight is how we tell what actually happened, who won and who lost, and whose draft board was good and whose was bad. Two years after the fact, you don't get to say a guy was the best available if a guy was picked soon after him and turned out better. And by the way, it's not like there was a clear consensus at the time that Spiller was the best player available at #9. The Bills said so after they picked him, because duh, of course that's what they're going to say. But nobody had Spiller going earlier than #9, and plenty of people said it was a bad pick at the time, for very specific reasons that were proven completely correct. That's an example of foresight and hindsight agreeing. Very cool example! I've bolded the key aspect of it: The Steelers were confident enough to "know" that they had better intel on Stallworth than anyone else. Reminds me of the Bills with Jasper last year. They knew no one else had scouted him, so they could wait for their last pick to pick him. In fact, they were so confident in their intel advantage, they would've signed him as an UDFA instead of drafting him, but with the impending lockout, they couldn't sign him until it was over, and someone else could find out about him in the meantime. More on this below. Yes, this is technically true, and I kind of agree with your broader point to an extent, but here's the rub: Brady wasn't actually a good prospect. By all accounts, he got so PO'ed at being drafted so late that he took it personally and worked extremely hard to get way better, and improved greatly after he was drafted. Also by all accounts, the Patriots had no idea how good he could be when they drafted him. (I recently read a really good article on the Patriots' side of things, but couldn't find the link. Sorry.) Now, once they got him into camp, they liked him a lot, so good job by the Patriots there. But the point is that unlike the Stallworth situation, the Pats didn't have superior intel to anyone else. And in fact, couldn't have had superior intel, because the Tom Brady that was available on draft day wasn't that good of a prospect compared to the Tom Brady that came into training camp after being drafted 199th overall. But let's say for the sake of argument that the Pats had known at the time how good Brady would be. I submit that there's no way they still would've waited until the 6th round to take him. Why? Because it's not the 70's anymore. You can't be sure you've got better intel than everyone else. During the draft, you can't "KNOW IT CONCLUSIVELY." You have to balance your confidence level that no one else has your intel against the risk of missing out on this prospect. If just one other team has even half the information you have, they'll probably take him by the 4th or 5th round. (Not to mention that, since Brady went to Michigan, every team had a pretty extensive scouting report on him anyway. But for the sake of the debate, let's pretend it was Eastern Michigan.) In the case of a future HOF QB like Brady, the risk is so high that you'll probably take him by the 3rd or 4th round even if you're 99% confident that you're the only one who knows how good he'll be. In the case of Jasper, the Bills were very confident, because he went to Bethel, and they probably heard from the coaches that no other NFL scouts had visited them. That's not a guarantee, but it makes it pretty likely that you're the only one whose scouted him. And their risk was very low, because even with a full scouting report, Jasper still wasn't that great a prospect. Needed to lose a ton of weight, learn how to play football at an NFL level, etc. It's no surprise that he spent most of last year on the practice squad and hasn't been mentioned at all in offseason interviews with Gailey and Nix. He could still develop into a real nice player, but we knew when he was drafted that any impact he made would be a long ways off, and not in any way guaranteed. But if Jasper had been a guy who could come in and start right away, I doubt the Bills would've waited till the end of the 7th round to draft him. If Stallworth was available in this year's draft, he would probably go in the first or second round. Okay, that's pure conjecture on my part, and kind of BS, but hear me out. I say that either 1.) enough teams would have a solid scouting report on him that he gets into the zeitgeist as a premiere prospect, shows up in all the mock drafts, and winds up being drafted high based on his ability, or 2.) the Steelers still managed to have the best intel on him, but with the prevalence of modern scouting, they would be worried that someone else has found out about him, and wouldn't be able to last beyond the 2nd round before pulling the trigger. NFL coaches tend to be extremely risk-averse with their on-field decisions, and I suppose that they're pretty risk-averse when it comes to losing out on a great prospect as well. I don't know this for a fact, but I think it's probably true.

Haha, I was thinking the same thing. Especially during the first 3/4 of the quotes, which were all negative. Everyone's overrated and everyone should be going a round later. Talk about CYA. I know if I was a GM, hearing that from a scout would tick me off. I know some drafts are weaker than others, but everyone's drafting from the same pool of players. They can't ALL be reaches. If a guy is one of the 32 best prospects in the draft pool, then he's a fine pick in the first round, even if he might be a late second-rounder in a different year.

Peter King and Florio, now that's a dynamic duo of idiocy. I would guess that Alex Smith is the only 1st-round QB since the advent of free agency to play out his entire rookie contract without being cut, traded, or signed to an extension. Very few top 10 picks will see that last year of the rookie deal, because they'll either be busts and cut, or really good and signed to an extension before the last year kicks in.

Bolded statement is the big thing for me. With the average NFL career being something like 4-5 years, his age isn't the biggest deal. If he panned out and became a good starting QB for 6 years, that's still a lot better than most of the QBs drafted in any given year. But I'm VERY leery of the production of a grown man playing against essentially boys. It's rare to see a big age difference in college football, since most guys don't become starters until their junior or senior years, and there's only a 2-year window for guys to come out early. I don't think I've ever seen a real breakdown, but I'd guess that a plurality of the guys picked on Thursday will probably be 5th-year seniors, followed by 4th-year seniors, followed by 4th-year juniors, all between the ages of 21-23. (I also would expect the first round to skew much more towards the juniors than the rest of the draft, because the most elite prospects tend to come out early.) In football, there isn't a huge difference between a 20 year old and a 22 year old, but there is a big difference between a 20 year old and a 25 year old. I don't know how closely anyone follows the NBA draft, but I follow it about the same as the NFL draft, and one of the big lessons that comes up every year is that age is a big factor. The gap's a lot tighter though. A guy who puts up good numbers at age 19 is a MUCH better prospect than the guy who puts up the same numbers at 21 or 22. SU's Wes Johnson is a good recent example off the top of my head. Money college player, but he was 22 (I think) by the time he was drafted. Hasn't done anything of note in the NBA, because he didn't have much room to improve athletically. I'm probably being too long-winded here, but my point is that I don't usually look at age for NFL draft picks, because they're in a pretty narrow range that doesn't matter much. (To me, it would be like comparing two 19-year-olds in the NBA draft and deciding that one had more upside because he was born in February instead of June.) But in the case of a guy like Weeden, the big age difference between him and the guys he played against in college makes me suspect his numbers. Doesn't guarantee anything, but it's something to be concerned about.

Not a conspiracy, but yes, we got lightly screwed. It sucks, but you still have to play the games.

I loved when the editor of this clip would show 3 straight horrible Tebow passes, then put up a card saying something like "Tebow playing almost perfect, but losing due to bad defense and special teams." I also liked how he kept pointing out that the RT would "lose contain" after like 4 seconds of perfect blocking. Yeah, it's very reasonable to expect to have over 5 seconds to just chill in the pocket and wait for a receiver to shake his man by 5 yards so you're comfortable throwing to him.

The Maybin fiasco had nothing to do with draft strategy or positional value and everything to do with poor scouting. The best pick for the Bills would have been Brian Orakpo, who played the same position as Maybin. JPP was BPA, not Spiller. Drafting the best player available doesn't have to mean drafting a guy who specifically plays a position you don't need. And drafting for need doesn't have to mean drafting a guy who can't play. But that's neither here nor there. I feel like the last page or so of this thread has devolved into a typical internet flame argument, with both sides beating up their respective strawmen. Obviously you want to draft good players and not busts, but it's very hard in advance to tell which will be which. (Especially for us fans, who only have very limited scouting access.) And obviously some positions are more important than others, so you'd always take a Pro Bowl QB over a Pro Bowler at any other position. But the question is, how much should positional value be weighed at the top of the draft? In other words, if you're a GM, and you are confident that two players at different positions will both develop into really good pros, which one should you take? One of the frequently-used examples for this debate is the 2008 draft. Most people would agree that Jake Long is a better LT than Matt Ryan is a QB. (Long has made the Pro Bowl all 4 years of his career, and was 2nd team All-Pro in 2009 and 1st team All-Pro in 2010. Most experts consider Long and Joe Thomas the clear top 2 OTs in the NFL. On the other hand, Ryan has made 1 Pro Bowl in 2010, and you'd be hard-pressed to find any NFL analyst who considers him a top 5 QB. Most probably have him as a borderline top 10 QB. Above average, but not great.) So the question is, which are you better off with? I say Matt Ryan, and I don't think it's close. This is why I generally tend to favor drafting money positions in the first round. YES OBVIOUSLY IT IS BETTER TO TAKE A PRO BOWL LB OR S THAN A BUST QB OR LT. Duh. But I don't know who will be a Pro Bowler and who will be a bust. So I tend to prefer guys that, if they pan out, will provide the maximum benefit to the team. Kuechly could easily become a really good player, but just another AJ Hawk. Whitner was and is a good NFL starter at S. But if Mark Barron became another Whitner, that's pretty disappointing at #10 overall. Trent Richardson might have a really strong 5-year career. On the other hand, if we draft a WR, or an LT, or a CB, and he develops into a player who's good but not great, that will help our team a lot more than a S or LB or RB or OG who turns out to be good but not great.

Giving up a 2 to move up 5 spots in round 1 seems reasonable to me.

I saw a stat from Pro Football focus where Samuel was thrown at deep (>20 yards) 12 times last year, and only allowed 1 catch. If the Bills could make it work financially, I'd be all for shipping a 5th-rounder out for him.

This is one of several really good posts in this thread. I'm about to contradicts some things in it, but please don't take that for an overall disagreement with your post or point. I'm just pointing some things out. Bolded is an understatement -- there has never been a Hall of Fame punter, unless you count Otto Graham (you shouldn't). Ray Guy's name gets brought up every year, but I don't think he's ever been a finalist and maybe not even a semi-finalist. And according to his Wikipedia page, he's the only full-time punter ever to be nominated at all. 2002 draft comes to mind -- both Levi Jones at #10 and Dwight Freeney at #11 were characterized as reaches at the time. I distinctly remember the ESPN crew giving the Bungles the absolute business for drafting Jones at #10. They cut the Colts a little more slack (or at least Mel Kiper did), but there was definitely talk of him being a reach. Obviously Freeney panned out very well, but Jones panned out pretty well, too. He was a good starter at LT for 6+ years. Not an amazing pick, but to your point about positional value, getting an above-average starter at LT for 6+ years is worth a lot more than a pick like Whitner. In 2010, Tyson Alualu was the joke pick of the entire draft, and one of the ultimate reaches. Yet he started as a rookie and played really well, and was one of the keys of that defense.

He is medically cleared to play football. If the problem was still there, he wouldn't be able to get medical clearance.

I think a major, major, MAJOR difference will be the DC and scheme. We actually weren't that bad defending the run up the middle last year. The big problem was cutbacks and outside runs. Why? A few reasons, but the biggest one was that a 300 lb. DT/DE hybrid was lined up at OLB and tasked with containing outside runs. That won't be happening any more next year. That's one example that I could tell just from watching games live. I'm sure there were a bunch more problems that couldn't be known for sure without knowing the playbook/playcalls, watching practice, or watching film.

Miller plays LB on run downs and DE on pass downs, similar to Matthias Kiwanuka for the Giants. Neither guy is a useful comp for Kuechly.

Agree with most in this thread -- draft Saturday used to be awesome, now it's lame. I already have things I can do (or TV I can watch) on a Thursday night; who cares that the first round happens to be on? I will say that if the NFL does get the broadcasts to stop tipping picks, that would be a huge improvement. Last year was just awful to watch. So anti-climactic.

No, no, it's fine. You just get your 2015 edition of Gray's Sports Almanac, look up where all of the Pro Bowlers were picked, and draft them a couple spots earlier. Or Buddy Nix could put on the ol' catsuit and break into the other 31 teams' offices the night before the draft and steal their draft boards. That would work, too. All jokes aside, BobChalmers has a bit of a point here, which is that if you can get a guy at your next pick, you don't need to get him at your current pick. So you should draft the best guy who won't be around at your next pick. The problem, of course, is that it's very hard to know if a guy will be available at your next pick or not. Anyone who gets deep into mock draft stuff knows that beyond the first 2 rounds or so, it becomes incredibly difficult to predict a player's draft position. It's not uncommon to see guys drafted as high as the 4th round who weren't even projected to be drafted (sometimes not even invited to the combine).

Part 4 has been posted, and specifically talks about Boller. Not a bad read.

I don't plan on touching either, because I think both will be overdrafted. If both fell to the 5th round or so, I'd probably draft Fred first, because he was better last year and I like him more.

Big time. Wait, let me rephrase that. Big time. I don't think I've ever had so little confidence in either what the Bills will do, or who will turn out to be good. On the bright side, it means it'll be pretty hard for me to be disappointed. On the down side, it'll also be pretty hard for me to be psyched. If it's Kuechly or a CB, meh. I'll be okay with it, but from a positional standpoint, it's disappointing. If it's a non-Kalil LT, I'll be happy, but very wary, because any of them might fail at LT. If it's Floyd, meh. I'm not too enamored of him. (Full disclosure: if it's Floyd, I'll probably watch a lot of youtube clips of his highlights and come away really excited.) If it's a total wildcard like Tallywhacker or DeCastro or someone, I'll be very surprised in a neutral way. Only drafting Trent Richardson could really upset me.

Buddy's quote is at about the 1:52 mark of the "Nix on Bills Left Tackle Situation" video on buffalobills.com (sorry, can't figure out how to get a direct link right now). It's a bit confusing in some ways. Nix and Whaley (in discussing other positions) really stressed depth, competition, the next guy being able to come in and play w/ very little dropoff, etc. And Nix had his whole spiel about how the only backup OT on the roster is Sam Young, who 1.) has never done anything in the NFL, 2.) is coming off knee surgery, and 3.) is considered a RT only, not a candidate for LT. None of this is news. Given that, it made sense a couple weeks ago when Nix seemed to imply that the team was looking to draft a "start from Day One" LT at #10 and also a developmental tackle in the mid/late rounds. But Nix doesn't have a history of drafting linemen high, especially tackles, and now I'm thinking he won't this time, either. The quote that really sticks with me is, "...I guess I was thinking a big playmaker, which a tackle is not..." which is referring back to his earlier quote, "What we'd like to get is a difference maker, or a playmaker, an impact guy." That was one of his more unguarded moments that I saw, and I think tells us that going LT is not Option 1 at #10 overall. I do think it might be an option if the "playmaker" they want isn't there, in which case they'll talk up how much they love whichever LT they pick and say they wanted him all along, but inside, they'll be disappointed. And yes, I realize Nix started and finished the full statement by saying that a left tackle can be a difference maker, but that sounded like Nix just speaking extemporaneously. Same with the comments about top LT's drafted in the top 8-10 picks: He was just talking in abstract terms about the league/football in general, not talking specifically about the Bills. Which is a good way to answer a question without either lying (which Nix doesn't seem to do) or blatantly showing your hand (which Nix also doesn't do -- there are much more hints and tips with Nix than other GMs, but never any outright admission of who he wants to draft). We'll see what happens in just over a week, but I'll say this in advance: Given all the non-Bell injuries on the O-line last year, I'll be very disappointed if the Bills decide that they need to worry more about McGee & Florence's age and McKelvin's contract situation than about the literal void they have at backup LT. They think they struck gold with a 4th-round OT last year (who was actually declared an RT, not an LT, when he was drafted), and that's awesome. But counting on doing it again is really stupid. Most mid-round picks can't come in and be effective starters as rookies. And the odds are pretty good that Hairston will get hurt at some point. Maybe I'm overreacting and lumping Nix's comments in with a bunch of fans' comments unconsciously -- it seems like I've seen a bunch of posters here who think there's no problem with Hairston and Levitre being our only LT options next year, but are terrified that 7-year NFL starter Kirk Morrison is slated to start at a position that only plays half the defensive snaps. Posters who insist (to the contradiction of Nix) that LTs can easily be found in the later rounds, but on the other hand, a linebacker who reminds people of 5th-round pick Zach Thomas MUST be the pick in the first round. Don't get me wrong -- I have no idea if any of the LTs will be any good, and won't be upset if the Bills go in a different direction; I just don't like the logic some fans are using to justify picking the guy they like. If the Bills think Kuechly or Floyd or one of the CBs or whoever is a true difference maker, then that's all the justification they need, and let's hope they're right.

I tend to agree with you, but don't forget the part where he says that the Bills have only 2 healthy tackles and 1 more coming off an injury, and he wants 2 additional tackles. I got a vibe that they're hoping a solid prospect falls to the 2nd round, and they'll probably grab one in rounds 4-7 whether they get one high or not.

Count me in as well! It does make me wonder: every year, there's a player or position that winds up going much later than we expected. Now, that's usually not OT, because those usually tend to go higher than expected if anything (b/c it's such an important position), but maybe this could be the year? Let's face it, after Kalil, all the OT prospects have some knocks on them. It does remind me a little of 2008(?) when we were debating Malcolm Kelly, Limas Sweed, Devin Thomas, and James Hardy at #11 overall, and all of them wound up being available for us in round 2. And of course, all of them wound up being extremely disappointing. As long as that last part doesn't repeat, I'd be really happy with Martin or Glenn or even Adams falling to us at #41.

Thanks for posting this one, too! I actually enjoyed this one a lot more than the WR one, just b/c there was one useful piece of info -- the Bills consider Cordy Glenn a tackle prospect. Whaley: "For us, a guy with that size, and that type of foot athlete, you try him out at tackle. We believe that he has a chance to play there, and produce there at a high level." For those of you unable to watch the video right now, Whaley's tone was more toward "Have you seen this guy? He's a tackle, duh," than "Well, maybe he might maybe be able to maybe have a chance at tackle someday..."

Thanks for posting! First impression, 10 seconds in: If Whaley is serious about taking over as GM once Nix retires, he'd better straighten out his facial hair situation. No one is going to take you seriously with a mid-90's goatee. Second impression, after watching it: Why do I watch these things? And why am I going to watch all the others that are up on buffalobills.com? Obviously the Bills are going to talk up everyone they're asked about, but very non-specifically, so they don't tip their hand too much. Gah. Post-draft press conferences are really good, but these are excruciating. Well, better get back to watching them.

Here's the full quote: “We need tackles, but we think Chris Hairston can play left tackle for us and win,” said Nix. ”People say Fitz gets the ball out quick, but we run our offense with a lot of empty sets, with five blockers and if they bring six he better get it out. In this offense he has to get it out quick. Chris Hairston might not be the prettiest foot athlete that he can protect the back side. We’ve got Pears and Sam Young is coming off of knee surgery. So we’ve only got three. We’d like to have two more.” Definitely no guarantee of going OT at #10, but this isn't the first time Nix has said they want two more tackles.