Niagara Bill Posted September 3, 2004 Share Posted September 3, 2004 so far as I can see, in the past 2 years not one draft choice has had a positive or lasting effect on the team or lived up to the expectations. You cannot improve a team until your draft choices make a positive impact. Free agency fill specifics, choices are the team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Typical TBD Guy Posted September 3, 2004 Share Posted September 3, 2004 2001 draft: success 2002 draft: make or break year for Williams, Reed, Denney, and Wire 2003 draft: too early to judge them yet 2004 draft: definitely too early to judge them yet Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoeF Posted September 3, 2004 Share Posted September 3, 2004 I agree with KH's assessment but wanted to ask Bill what do you think is a reasonable expectation for the number of impact players from an individual draft. Are you more focused on who we passed over to pick the guys we did or on who we selected and them not meeting expectation. If you are focusing on who we drafted take a look at the 2003 draft. 2003 was: McGahee-Back up tailback, who may or may not regain his burst--this is a key to his evaluation Kelsay-Part-time Starter Crowell-Not shown much McGee-Nickel Corner and KR with potential/Starter when Vincent moves to FS in 05 or 06 Aiken-Back-up to Moulds - 5th receiver with higher potential Sobieski-Back up at all 3 interior OL positions Sape - the 4th or 5th D tackle Haggan- Starting to come around--sideline to sideline playmaker but behind a great starting group that was all acquired by FA.. So we have 1 part-time starter (Kelsay); a key Defensive sub (McGee) and three potential "first off the bench" back ups (Aiken, McGahee and Sobieski)--and then two guys who probably have been beaten out by a street free agent (Stamer) and a 7th round pick (Stevenson) To me, that's 5 of 7 contributing at or above the expected level after one full year in the league (taking into account McGahee's special circumstances)--The sporting news draft preview magazine does an analysis like this for every team for the previous 5 years and 5 of 7 would be slightly above average for the second year removed from a draft... Just food for thought... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahnyc Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 I think we need more production from our drafts in 2002 and 2003. It is unreasonable to expect draft picks from 2004 to be ready for the pro bowl, but looking at our picks in 2002 and 2003, I don't see players that are ready to be quality starters. In fact, many teams start their draft picks in the first year; it is becoming a necessity that players contribute quickly with the salary cap and relatively short contract lengths. Of course we need to give the players time to develop, but I don't see many stars coming out of Williams, J. Reed, R. Denney, C. Wire, J. Bannan, L. Sape, C. Kelsay, Crowell and Pucillo. Other teams did get quality players from these drafts. If we have another poor season, it will be mostly about a failure in talent from recent drafts since our free agent signings have been comparatively better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justnzane Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 I think we need more production from our drafts in 2002 and 2003. It is unreasonable to expect draft picks from 2004 to be ready for the pro bowl, but looking at our picks in 2002 and 2003, I don't see players that are ready to be quality starters. In fact, many teams start their draft picks in the first year; it is becoming a necessity that players contribute quickly with the salary cap and relatively short contract lengths. Of course we need to give the players time to develop, but I don't see many stars coming out of Williams, J. Reed, R. Denney, C. Wire, J. Bannan, L. Sape, C. Kelsay, Crowell and Pucillo. Other teams did get quality players from these drafts. If we have another poor season, it will be mostly about a failure in talent from recent drafts since our free agent signings have been comparatively better. 17918[/snapback] It takes at least three years for most players to develop so chill out man. As for Wire, Williams, Reed and Kelsay/Denney (whichever earns startin spot) we'll get to see a lot of them this season as they all will be playing important roles with the team. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
justnzane Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 I disagree with "Wire only good for special teams" as he was a very solid SS in his rookie year. He would be a starter on most other teams in the league, and he will prove himself this year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
/dev/null Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 when all is said and done i expect the bills classes of 2002 and 2003 to rank close to the revered class of 2000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KOKBILLS Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 I disagree with "Wire only good for special teams" as he was a very solid SS in his rookie year. He would be a starter on most other teams in the league, and he will prove himself this year. 18030[/snapback] Well...I certainly hope you're right about Wire, but... I'm not sure you can call Wire's Rookie yr. "very solid." Maybe commendable considering the Position change from College. I doubt very much Wire could Start for a bunch of NFL Teams at either S Position currently. He's still a bit raw, takes bad angles at times, and remains a boarderline liability in Coverage (though Milloy is not exactly Ed Reed back there either). In some ways, Wire reminds me a bit of Kurt Schulz. He's shown, like Schulz did early on in his career, that he can be a lights out hitter at S. But it took Schulz a while to figure out what was going on in Coverage, and the fact that he could not simply blow up every Player he tried to Tackle. Schulz had 6 INT's in his 4th NFL Season, and 30 INT's over his last 7 years, mostly as a Starter. Wire may just catch on similarly, but I think the Jury is still way out on him as of now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 Well...I certainly hope you're right about Wire, but... I'm not sure you can call Wire's Rookie yr. "very solid." Maybe commendable considering the Position change from College. I doubt very much Wire could Start for a bunch of NFL Teams at either S Position currently. He's still a bit raw, takes bad angles at times, and remains a boarderline liability in Coverage (though Milloy is not exactly Ed Reed back there either). In some ways, Wire reminds me a bit of Kurt Schulz. He's shown, like Schulz did early on in his career, that he can be a lights out hitter at S. But it took Schulz a while to figure out what was going on in Coverage, and the fact that he could not simply blow up every Player he tried to Tackle. Schulz had 6 INT's in his 4th NFL Season, and 30 INT's over his last 7 years, mostly as a Starter. Wire may just catch on similarly, but I think the Jury is still way out on him as of now. 18079[/snapback] I like Wire as an athlete and as a player, but i would go so far as to not only NOT want to call his first pro year at SS "very solid" but would not even want to refer to it as commendable. I do think that Wire was spirited and plucky to take a good run a playing a position he had never played at any level of organize ball before. However, i find nothing commendable about the Bills in essence being forced to start him at SS because GW apparently totally miscaluclated how much Jenkins (his former player initially slated to start at SS) had left as a player. When he proved unable to be even a credible starter, the Bills were forced out of what been a tough but commendable idea of bringing Wire along slowly as a back-up SS to the foolish idea of starting him. he is a tough guy and a plucky hitter and tackler, but he simply did not have good enough command of the position and was a rookie in the NFL so his pass coverage decisions were a complete adventure his rookie year. Bill Belicheck saved our bacon by miscalculating the Milloy situation after our 2003 plan A (Cota) and Plan B both agreed to play and then retired. I think Wire's development has been really mismanged by the Bills who had slotted him to play his third position in three years. He actually has lucked out with the Milloy injury in that it at least looks like he will get to continue his SS education. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 so far as I can see, in the past 2 years not one draft choice has had a positive or lasting effect on the team or lived up to the expectations. You cannot improve a team until your draft choices make a positive impact. Free agency fill specifics, choices are the team. 17729[/snapback] Leaving out the results of his first year draft which by most regards has been very good and trying to judge him based on results from the second two years when most credible observers feel credible judgments cannot be made until after 3 years of play (Moulds for example would have been judged a bust after his first twi years results) is simply flat out wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nodnarb Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 stupid, untrue post. wasteth not your time on this tripe, bills brethren... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted September 4, 2004 Share Posted September 4, 2004 Not to many Safeties that started there career at LB are great at first, I think that LM hurt the impressive progress he was making last year in camp. If you were to ask me prior to the pick up if LM was a need, I may have said no, he is a good player, nay a great player. He was the reason we beat the Pats the first game. But the rest of the season i would have liked to see more coy, remember what he did to stewart. Coy is one of the best teamates in the locker room (from what I heard). For a 3rd round he was solid. I still to day can't figure out the Mike Williams pick....Bryant McKinnie is on his way to becoming the next jon Odgen. Mike Williams if he is lucky may be the next Lincoln Kennedy. who would you have rather had. kelsay is going to be solid this year, no question. the good thing about MM is he found a way to get ward the ball, in a foot race Reed might be able to beat ward, and this preseason Reed seems to be running very crisp routes. I am not expecting a 1000 year, but 800 would be nice, Moulds should get 1200, if healthy, and when reed starts to struggle Evans will finally be ready and get an additional 500 yards. you need role players too, and just be happy that none of these guys are Eric Flowers Or tillman-That was a bad draft, this is nothing to that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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