SuperKillerRobots

I didn't (and still don't) like Clausen, but I do think he was pretty low risk at #41. That being said, if they don't take Troup, we probably don't end up with a solid-looking NT prospect in this draft (there was a run on them after we took Troup). I've said this before, but I think there were three critical neesds on this team that all were nearly equally important: QB, LT, run defense. The run defense looks like it will be a lot better now than it was the past few years and is a tough one to fill especially given that we just switched defenses. If they are better against the run, that will go a long way towards making the team better. Maybe even moreso in year one than taking a QB (or at least one of those QBs). By the way, I had not only heard of Troup before the draft, but also remember Modrak/Nix talking about him during the combine and how impressed they were with him.

Way to try and stay positive. One of the things that I think about in the football offseason is all the teams each year that do turn it around suddenly. For most of those teams, before the season, most fans were equally as skeptical as most Bills fans are now. Not to say that it's going to happen (the immediate turnaround), but it goes to show that it doesn't matter what people say now about any team because next year they'll all be busy rationalizing what actually did happen, which is what actually matters.

That's assuming that the Bills would make the trade. Nix and Gailey both said that the team has a decent foundation, but no real stars. Why would you trade a potential star when you seem to be trying to pile them on at all costs (see Spiller in round 1)? I think Lee is a star given the right environment.

I'm going to say that they keep six of them: Evans Easley Hardy Johnson Parish Nelson I want them to keep Roosevelt (and think he'll at least make the PS), but I can't see them keeping 3 small WRs. I think they are going to try to go big on the outside and small in the slot.

They're called prescriptions. All you have to do is carry the bottle with you. You'd think anyone playing football, with that much money and resources at their disposal, would be able to find a doctor/reason to get them prescribed.

I agree with this completely. I think you vote no because you know this is an exception instead of the rule. On top of that, it's an exception for Giants/Jets charity. They're having trouble selling the seats for their new stadium because of the pricing and the economy, so the NFL is going to throw them a bone to juice up excitement. My question is, if you're giving out charity, then I think there are more deserving teams (i.e. Bills). This is like the Wall Street bailout - they overspent and weren't properly hedged against a turn in the economy and now they are in trouble unless the league does something about (by "in trouble" I mean relatively, not that they're going under).

Our run defense should definitely be better. After the combine, I started thinking about the draft and it occurred to me that easily our most overlooked issue was the run defense, if not also the most important. I think with how bang-your-head-against-the-wall-bad things were last year, people tend to forget how many games we were in late and lost and how much that was due to us not being able to stop the run. Not to say that we're going to win 10 games this year because all we needed were some fat guys, but I think it will go a long way to making the Bills more watchable than the past few years. I don't know about anyone else, but I can stand lower scoring games, but I can't stand watching a team run 6 times in a row for 4 first downs in the 4th quarter of a tight game. You can make the QB/LT case boths ways on this too. One is saying that if you have a good QB/LT you need to get the ball to the offense one time in the fourth quarter, they score, team wins. On the flip side, if you don't have such a good QB, you have to get him the ball more than once in the 4th quarter to expect to come back. Since for the most part it's easier to find run defenders than a guaranteed good QB in the draft, I can see why they did what they did in the draft on defense.

This is what maeks me crazy about the Maybin pick. Why the hell don't you take the guy with better production? DJ needs to save his job by putting together at least a middling but competitive season. He needs more out of the pass rush. First everyone says Orakpo won't be there when we pick, so we're probably stuck with Maybin or one of the other guys that really didn't do anything. Orakpo falls into their laps, with solid college production, no major issues (outside of the quietly stated and possibly overrated work ethic issues) and they don't take him. In hindsight it seems typical of the entire DJ era - basically a blind squirrel looking for a nut.

I partly agree with what you're saying, but none of the circumstancial evidence you cite makes the little Maybin did look any better. I do think it's a joke that people thought Orakpo deserved the DROY more than Byrd.

I think the point that TT is making is that when he played they won games and he was a huge part of it. I think that 95% of the people on this board would overlook any shortcoming of any player if we consistantly contended for the SB.

I remember that story about TT. Wasn't it him and a few other players at Jim Kelly's restaurant? I think TT is sober and has been for a few years now - maybe 6?

The funny part is I remember a story that came out after that draft in which the 49ers offerred to flip picks with us for our 2nd round pick I think. I know it's hindsight, but that would have been a great move, with the exception of having to suffer through the A-Train for another season.

Everything can be used recreationally. As you do more of it, you need more of it to get off. This puts more of it in your system and your body begins to adjust to the chemical. When you then stop taking it, you suffer withdrawl. Addiction is your body's need to avoid that withdrawl. So you can keep it under control and not do it every day so your body doesn't get saturated with it and lead you into withdrawl and the potential for addiction.

So you know from your own experience? Maybe a few of your friends and family too? Do you work with addicts? If you're speaking from experience with you or your family, then it's only a handful of people, which doesn't really mean anything. If you work with addicts, then you only see those that need help.

I agree with that logic and hope to hell that it turns out to be correct. Also, to bring the bolded question into the context of our Buffalo Bills, you have to have both the great LT and the great RB on the board to even have a chance to pose the question. In case no one guessed it, I didn't like Bulaga at 9 leading up to the draft (still don't either - he's an RT) and am happy we didn't take him out of need.

You can't win with the post-draft press because everyone can get second-guessed, so the media gives the benefit of the doubt to historically successful teams, while questioning those that historically suck. This makes sense, but doesn't make anything these people say right or valid at this point in time. Most of the players that will end up not having careers will not have them for much different reasons than what people are saying now. Also, I think you could argue that the biggest need on the team for the past few years has been to stop the run. Last year our QBs were terrible, but the year before they showed some life. The run defense hasn't been able to stop anyone since Fat Pat left. Even the offensive line, when considering the injuries, didn't do horribly. You can't say that the run defense hasn't been consistently horrible for the past three years. Hopefully some big guys on the d-line (most of whom came from strong college run defenses) will rectify this problem. I don't think you're using the term "reach" as it's being discussed. A Reach has nothing to do with what needs your team has or doesn't. It is solely talking about where that player was projected to go vs where he actually went. What you're talking about is something more like poor asset management. For what it's worth, I also hate the fact that we've taken so many RBs with high picks in the past decade. The question that I keep coming back to however is what if this guy (been thinking it since the McGahee pick) is the next Marshall Faulk, Adrian Peterson, Chris Johnson, etc? Passing on one of those players would hurt just as much as passing on any other player that pans out that well. I guess in the end, what I keep coming back to, is that when you have a chance to take a blue-chip prospect (maybe there are 5 in each draft), you have to take it regardless of what your team needs are. The potential that Spiller has is far more than that of Jackson and Lynch combined, so if everything goes according to plan this'll be a good pick and no one will care in a year or two. If not, then we'll all be pissed that we took another RB so early again instead of _________ (Derrick Morgan for instance, the possible next best defensive player in the game).

I don't think you're first point has anything to do with players holding out at all. In fact I don't think the hiring rules are that stringent. They can hire pretty much any !@#$ off the street they want to, as long as their rights aren't owned by another team. For example, we could sign any player in the CFL to a contract right away without having to draft him. Just because they have a pre-disposed talent-dispersement program doesn't make them completely different than any other company; they still select from the talent pool. Maybe I'm missing something on this and if so, pelase fill me in. I also don't think that having a system where players were basically FAs after 3 or 4 years as opposed to having no restrictions does anything to players holding out with the exception of not wanting to play for a particular organization. I do think that your second point is valid. That will be the only way to stop players from holding out. Also, I would agree that the owners did setup the rules to favor them, but without the expectations that costs would increase so rapidly. They made a huge error when thinking that they could (or would not have to) control costs at some point.

It is ridiculous to a certain extent, but what you have to remember is that these players could be cut at any time and only are guaranteed part of the contract. On top of that, most players only get a very little amount of money (comparatively) in bonus vs actual wage. In light of that, it doe smake a little mroe sense because players want to maximize their good years and turn them into a big payday. If they play poorly, the team can just cut them. I think the biggest problem with this is that the team would get nothing in return for that player, which hurts especially if you drafted that player. I think one way to stop this would be to guarantee every contract written. This would do two things. First it would take away the reason players hold out for more money - to maximize their earnings from a good season in thevent they get hurt. Second it would force team management to make realistics bets on how long a player is going to be able to play and if they are wrong, it'll hurt their bottom line (like hockey). I think the owners will definitely figure out a way to control costs better in the new CBA. If you as a player sign a market setting deal in 2006 for 7 years and then in 2009 another player gets nearly double what the first got in 06, that first player should have to honor that contract. Maybe they could just make it so that you cannot renegotiate a contract until it has one season left.

People do take drugs that we've all been lead to believe are super addictive in very casual ways. Not all people get addicted to substances in a way that they lose control. It's very easy to have a $500/week coke habit and still come into work every day. In many cases drug addictiveness is expressed in the most extreme ways for two reasons: 1. to scare you into not doing it and 2. to speak to the people who really are going to have a problem with it as opposed to those who will not have it take over their lives. People used heroin as a painkiller effectively for a l while before it was made illegal. Not everyone who uses it gets addicted, just a higher percentage of people than with morphine, which still has a high addiction rate. I'd bet most of these guys, having trained hard for sports fo rmost of their lives, are not huge addiction risks because believe it or not they probably have a good deal of will power to do things (or not) based on necessity. Also, ibuprofen blocks pain receptors as does Toradol - not sure about getting you high though.

Brandon holds the same power and position as he did last year. Make what you want out of that.

Starting at the bottom and going up, Ralph will live for another 20 years - rich people don't die. I actually seem to remember someone ont his board posting that Nix might be the hire in November of last year, but that doesn't really matter one way or another because you are right that few people saw this coming or even saw it as a possibility. The point is that it doesn't matter what the fans and media think about the hire coming out of left field, but I'd be more interested to hear about what other teams thought about it. How high would he have been on the list for another team's GM spot? On top of that, I think you could argue that the hiring of Whaley as Assistant GM as a very "conventional wisdom" move. I think if you looked at GM/headcoach restuctures across the NFL historically, you'd see that in many cases one or both of the guys were not on anyone's radar going into the process. We, as primarily Bills fans, don't have the perspective to readily see that however.

No one cares about your (2tsps/gal) bleachwater. I always find it interesting that people stake the claim that the philosophy change needs to come from ownership on down. I understand that a lot of people do this as a way to relate the rest of corporate America with an NFL team because let's face it, it's easier to fit everything into a matrix than it is to come up with a new model to use to understand something. I really don't think that ownership has to change it's philosophy (I assume you're advocating an ownership change) in order for this team to succeed. Don't you just need a new football guy to change the philosophy? I get the sentiment that "it all starts at the top", but isn't there a top to one portion of the organization and a top to the organization as a whole? Is Ralph really calling the players individually to set the tone? Is he cutting people himself? I feel like the change from no GM to having a GM was a big philosophical change. For what it's worth I think what Gailey has been saying and doing thus far is a huge departure in philosophy from anything either of the last two headcoaches did.

I'll bet it has to do with positional numbers going into camp, the impending draft pick signings, and poor schematic fits where the team wants to give the player the best chance possible to catch on with another team. My guess is the last reason is the most prevalent.

I hear what you're saying and agree to a certain extent, but two things come to mind. First was Buddy's assessment after the draft saying, "there's only one Spiller". The second is that there are legitimate questions surrounding the other two guys you mention. Primarily concerning their durability, as that argument goes both ways. Do you really want to take a chance on a guy who couldn't stay healthy in college and is a smaller player. It may just be me, but I'd want a guy who was an injury risk as opposed to taking one that was, if I had the opportunity. Trent Edwards comes to mind in this scenario. As far as trying to trade down and take a similiar player, last year's draft comes to mind. We had our choice between two similar players - Maybin and Orakpo - and we chose the one that did less last year. These are two similar players with a huge difference between their production. So why not trade down and take a player that looks similar at first glance? Because a similar player might not get you what you are looking for. If either of the other two guys are better than Spiller, then this will be a major point of emphasis going forward for the fan base and if not, no one will mention it past this offseason.

I voted Brohm because if he doesn't come out looking real good, they'll cut him for Fitzy. If he does play well, I think Fitzy goes.