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Some love for Keith Ellison...


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Gets a lot of abuse on this board, but he's going to have his 39th start out of 52 games this week. While by no means a star, isn't he pretty much everything that can be expected from a 6th round draft pick?

 

Who stacks up?

 

Bills Draft History

 

I think that says less about him and more about our lack of talent at LB. He is to small to fight off of a block. I would rather see Scott at LB then Ellison.

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I was also glancing through that Draft history and it explains completely why we're so bad. Inability to hit home runs on the first round.

 

JP Losman (QB), McGahee/Lynch (RB), McCargo (DT) Maybiin (DE) and Mike Williams (T). These are the highest paid positions (plus CB) and core of successful teams. All misses, plus we gave up 2nd round picks for Losman and McCargo increasing the impact.

 

That says nothing of Whitner, Evans, and McKelvin, none of who are home runs

 

Jury still out on others...

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I was also glancing through that Draft history and it explains completely why we're so bad. Inability to hit home runs on the first round.

 

JP Losman (QB), McGahee/Lynch (RB), McCargo (DT) Maybiin (DE) and Mike Williams (T). These are the highest paid positions (plus CB) and core of successful teams. All misses, plus we gave up 2nd round picks for Losman and McCargo increasing the impact.

 

That says nothing of Whitner, Evans, and McKelvin, none of who are home runs

 

Jury still out on others...

 

We got Whitner when we should have gotten Ngata. We got McCargo when we should of gotten Mangold (At the time I though for sure that's why we traded up). We sure would be a lot better team if we had just made better choices on these two picks.

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I was also glancing through that Draft history and it explains completely why we're so bad. Inability to hit home runs on the first round.

 

JP Losman (QB), McGahee/Lynch (RB), McCargo (DT) Maybiin (DE) and Mike Williams (T). These are the highest paid positions (plus CB) and core of successful teams. All misses, plus we gave up 2nd round picks for Losman and McCargo increasing the impact.

 

That says nothing of Whitner, Evans, and McKelvin, none of who are home runs

 

Jury still out on others...

The fact that Kelsey is the longest tenured pick we have at 7 years always slaps me in the face pretty hard. Hitting no one in the draft that you hold on to is not the road to success either.

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We got Whitner when we should have gotten Ngata. We got McCargo when we should of gotten Mangold (At the time I though for sure that's why we traded up). We sure would be a lot better team if we had just made better choices on these two picks.

 

 

When Ngata blew up the Jets lineman and sacked Sanchez the other night to all but seal the Ravens victory, I almost shed a tear for what could have been... :cry:

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I think that says less about him and more about our lack of talent at LB. He is to small to fight off of a block. I would rather see Scott at LB then Ellison.

 

A little bit of truth to that. But as a 6th round pick he was a very good one. He's undersized and gets blocked out of plays more than I'd like, yet he really has a nose for the football and gets in on quite a number of tackles. He's been durable too. I wish he wasn't forced to start as much as he has. I'd prefer to keep him special teams and one of the last LB's to come off the bench, not the first. But that"s the reflection of our lack of depth on the team, not his fault.

 

He's stayed around because he's been better than those brought in to replace him. To repeat: I love having him on the team, just prefer it as the number 6-8 LB not 4-5 LB.

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Ellison is a poor man's London Fletcher. He seems to involved in most of the running plays when he is out there. Alright, sometimes it may be after a 5 or more yard gain, but he makes the tackle. On a side note, I was at the Bills vs. Lions Preseason game this year, sitting in end zone at tunnel side and was able to talk to players at the half and end of the game. Ellison was one of the few Bills who went out of their way to shake my hand and talk to me (along with Spiller, Youboty and Scott). It was one my alltime personal Bills highlights. Anyway, I wish more athletes were like this and I can't say anything bad about these 4 guys.

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Gets a lot of abuse on this board, but he's going to have his 39th start out of 52 games this week. While by no means a star, isn't he pretty much everything that can be expected from a 6th round draft pick?

 

Who stacks up?

 

Bills Draft History

Ellison was certainly the worst starting LB in the NFL last year. Tackles are the most overrated statistic in football because they don't depict WHERE those tackles were made.

 

Ellison is too small to make tackles at the LOS, doesn't have a good nose for the football (he's almost always out of position) he just has enough speed to make up for his lack of football instincts.

 

Why this guy is still on the team is beyond me. It shows how poor the LBs are on this team. He's awful.

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I was also glancing through that Draft history and it explains completely why we're so bad. Inability to hit home runs on the first round.

 

JP Losman (QB), McGahee/Lynch (RB), McCargo (DT) Maybiin (DE) and Mike Williams (T). These are the highest paid positions (plus CB) and core of successful teams. All misses, plus we gave up 2nd round picks for Losman and McCargo increasing the impact.

 

That says nothing of Whitner, Evans, and McKelvin, none of who are home runs

 

Jury still out on others...

We know! We Know! We Know!

 

We got Whitner when we should have gotten Ngata. We got McCargo when we should of gotten Mangold (At the time I though for sure that's why we traded up). We sure would be a lot better team if we had just made better choices on these two picks.

We Know! We Know! We Know!

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The fact that Kelsey is the longest tenured pick we have at 7 years always slaps me in the face pretty hard. Hitting no one in the draft that you hold on to is not the road to success either.

 

Part of that points more to our consistently revolving door of coaches and GM's. When you consistently have new coaches coming in, they all want to make their own mark on the team. That means things like Pat Williams, Jabari Greer, Antoine Winfield et al getting the boot. We hit on a lot of our drafts over the past 10 years, we just don't keep them because by the time those guys are hitting their prime, we have a different coach with no loyalty to them.

 

I also think this is a big part of the problem of luring FA's here. I also think that obviously all of those issues are alleviated by winning, but I think that you can't underscore how much firing Wade, and to a lesser extent Mularky leaving had on the long term viability of this team over the last 10 years.

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You want to know how the Bills could have been better? Look at every first round draft pick they've made in the past decade, then scroll down to the Ravens' pick from that year, that round. The Ravens almost always were drafting after us, and they beat us pretty much every year. Observe:

 

2009: Aaron Maybin vs. Michael Oher

2008: Leodis McKelvin vs. Joe Flacco

2007: Marshawn Lynch vs. Ben Grubbs

2006: Donte Whitner vs. Haloti Ngata

 

And they're not even the best drafters in the league. They just make the moves that are hanging out there for us. Don't touch anything else, and our starting offensive line is Oher-Grubbs-Wood-Levitre-Bell; Ngata spearheads a 3-4 between Stroud and Edwards, and Flacco is calling the plays for Spiller and Evans. That might be a playoff team.

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Gets a lot of abuse on this board, but he's going to have his 39th start out of 52 games this week. While by no means a star, isn't he pretty much everything that can be expected from a 6th round draft pick?

 

Who stacks up?

 

Bills Draft History

 

No argument on him being the best 6th round pick for the Bills. Grant Guthrie was a decent kicker 40 years ago for a few years, but that's about it.

 

However, check out some of these picks from even lower rounds in Bills history:

*Jay Riemersma - 7th Round, 1996 (tight end in the Pete Metzellars mold who started a few years after Pete went off to Carolina with Frank Reich.)

*Kurt Schulz - 7th Round 1992 (starting fee safety throughout the 90's)

*Mark Pike - 7th Round 1986 (2nd best special teams player in Bills history)

*Bob Chandler - 7th Round, 1974 (one of the best all-time receivers in Bills history, great blocker during the O.J. glory years)

*Jeff Wright - 8th Round, 1988 (starting nose tackle for Bills Super Bowl teams after Smerlas left - great pass rusher for his smaller size.)

*Carlton Bailey - 9th Round, 1988 (shared starting LB duties with oft-injured Shane Conlan next to Ray Bentley during SB years - terrific hitter with good speed)

*Keith McKeller - 9th Round, 1987 - (Naturally talented receiving tight end who never rose to full time starter, but was more famous for actually being the "K" in the SB era "K-Gun" No

Huddle offense.)

*Rob Riddick 9th Round, 1981 - (Worked his way up to starting running back after Joe Cribbs bolted for the USFL and had some very productive years before Thurman came along in '88)

*Mike Lodish 10th round, 1990 - (Was a very reliable back up nose tackle behind Wright during the SB years.)

*Greg Cater 10th round, 1980 - (Bills' starting punter for about 5 years or so.)

*Will Grant 10th round, 1978 - (Bills' starting center during the Knox playoff years and beyond, ended starting at center for Buffalo for almost 10 years.)

*Howard Ballard 11th Round 1987 (Became the starting LT from his rookie season and remained the "House" that protected Kelly's blind side throughout the SB years until he left for Seattle with free agency.

*Charles Romes 12th Round, 1977 - (Bills' starting CB during the Knox years and beyond, similar to Will Grant's time.)

 

Taking value and draft position into consideration, House Ballard may be one of the all-time steals in the 11th round of the draft in NFL history. Unfortunately for him, after punching his free agent ticket to Seattle in the prime of his career, he was ravaged by knee injuries and was never Pro Bowl level again.

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