15 worst trades

[Sisyphean Bills]

The bad decision to draft Spiller lead to the bad decision to deal Lynch. That first year with Buddy and Chan was a personnel clusterf*ck. Beside those two dumb moves, they came to camp with Trent Edwards still as their QB after he had proven himself incapable two seasons earlier and reached for Troup in round 2. There was no sense of urgency to improve the team.....they wanted to take the season to evaluate the talent on hand. Well, the first one they should have kept and evaluated was obviously Marshawn Lynch. Spiller was so clueless as a rookie they should have redshirted him. In year 4 he is still too dimwitted to pick up a blitz. Lynch is mensa material compared to poor CJ.

 

They were living in the past, thinking they had all the time in the world to slowly stockpile talent across the board. The 1970s Cowboys and Steelers model. In the modern era of free agency and 3-and-out regimes, it was fantastic and doomed to failure.

 

If the Bills could've had the back that Lynch has transformed into in Seattle, he is hands-down more valuable to a younger QB than is Spiller. Still, even if one felt Spiller was a no-brainer sort of upgrade and had to get rid of Lynch because of his off-field issues, why wait until October to do something about it? As soon as the Bills sprinted to the podium to draft Spiller, barely letting a few seconds tick off the draft clock, their phone absolutely lit up with other teams wanting to talk about Lynch. Again, no sense of urgency. Rather than strike, on the glut at "runners" they fed themselves into, when the iron was hot, possibly putting themselves into position to address holes on the roster, the Nix-Gailey duo kicked back, took a nap, and drafted for a 3-4 defense that never actually materialized. They hit the ground asleep at the wheel. Yes, the personnel management was a flusterduck. They set themselves up to get off to an 0-8 start before barely squeaking by the Lions.

[BADOLBILZ]

I was never so much anti-lynch, as I was anti-whatever-the-heck-we-do-with-running-backs-in-buffalo.

 

For some reason, our front office went through a stretch (and still are I fear) where they feel they need a top notch RB to be successful, and they keep drafting running backs when we dont need one.

 

In 2003 we had Travis Henry. No need to take a luxury pick on Willis McGahee. Sure he turned out good, but we didnt need to do that.

In 2007 we had McGahee, yet we drafted Marshawn Lynch.

In 2010 we take CJ Spiller...yet we had Lynch & Fred Jackson.

 

If the trend continues...We are due for a 1st round RB pick in 2014! Or we can just use FA pickups at RB. My god, look at how many low-draft pick RBs are dominating in this league. You dont need first round RBs anymore (unless they are the elite Peterson type backs).

 

This is probably my biggest grip about the front offices of the past. When was the last time you ever heard a team in the NFL say "you know what...we really need to find us a good RB...our RB play is KILLING us"?! Never! Because anyone with a pulse can run through a hole if it exists.

 

Running backs have long been and probably always will be a dime-a-dozen. I think it's pretty much accepted now by Bills fans that you don't build a team around RB's and DB's. I can't say that was the case even 5 years ago, but after using half of their first picks in every draft on the merger on those positions people finally seem to understand.

 

One thing though........they didn't have McGahee when they drafted Lynch. They traded McGahee first. McGahee was all about getting paid and he was entering his walk year and I was adamant at the time that he was going to have a HUGE season. I felt it was going to be a 1500 yard year......which was exactly what they needed. Instead they used their important first round pick on another RB and gave McGahee away.