what we really gave up for losman

[Ramius]

thanks dave, i have had this arguement with numerous people over the past few months...nice to have someone back me up...

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

What we gave up...  is correct, our 2nd and 5th round pick...  If you were looking in terms of trading for Bledsoe - we gave up a 1st for him...  because he was a vet and we weren't getting a "draft pick" which we used for a player...

 

Now, could someone picked with those 2nd & 5th round picks have helped us THIS year?  I don't want to go there...  Maybe someone with a better crystal ball can answer that question.

 

But that's what we gave up, and I agree that we gained a lot by having the rookie QB for a year (even injured and mostly holding a clipboard).  When you factor in that '05 is a weak draft...  it makes even more sense.

242762[/snapback]

 

The way you express it is a technically accurate way of expressing it, but it does not reflect the full reality of the situation.

 

The Bledsoe trade provides an even clearer indication of this becaise the 2002 season is in the books and Bledsoe's career as a Bill is done.

 

I think TD really has hit upon an approach to the draft that really reflects the reality of the ultimate in fantasy league activities. It is best seen by adapting your question to the reality of the situation. Specifically:

 

How does Bledsoe's contribution to the 2002 Bills match-up against how our 2003 1st round pick would have contributed to the 2002 Bills if we had not made the trade?

 

The answer is that our 2003 pick would not have contributed anything to the 2002 Bills if we had kept it, Trading Bledsoe for the future consideration was by far the right thing to do if Bledsoe provided any contribution to the 2002 team at all. In fact, by playing QB to an 8-8 record which represented one of the largest improvements in NFL history by a team in W/L and by him qualifying for the Pro Bowl (if you think someone else deserved the reserve Pro nod more that year feel free to name 'em) and doing this in exchange for a resource that would have contributed nothing to the 2002 team TD came as close as one can get to getting a lot for nothing as you can get.

 

The equation gets more complex in the outyears as Bledsoe's production is now compared to the woulda/coulds/shoulda of who the Bills might have taken with the choice, or by who the Pats took with the choice, or even who the Bills took with the choice they materialized out of the PP trade which gave the Bills a 1st eound pick. Deciding how you want to look at it (there are not unreasonable arguments for each of these views) one can compare Bledsoe to Warren who I think NE took with the pick, Bledsoe to whatever QB was available if that is who you allege we would have picked, or lump Bledsoe and WM together as the players acquired by the Bills using the 1st round of the draft resource,

 

Still, all in all I think this was perhaps the best use of the 1st round draft resource by a GM that I have ever seen when one looks at the Bills use of the 2003 1st round.

 

The numeric method used in a post above which assigns a value to picks and discounts them over time tries to get at this, but I think it also fails to describe reality. In general it treats all drafts as being of equal value (a 2nd round pick in the middle of the 1st round is worth x points regardless of the year) but at least does attempt to take time into account by skewing the value of a traded pick by giving it value skewed by 1 round.

 

However, this fails to recognize the reality that one year's draft may be stronger or weaker than the next year's draft and a choice in the middle of the 1st round may be worth a lot one year but have a totally different worth the next year.

 

Not only does this method of discounting not really reflect the differences in player quality from year to year, but there actually can be significant variation within a draft by need so that a 1st round choice in a draft may actually produce a lesser player than a later choice or that the comparison of values is not logarythmatically consistent within a draft.

 

What I mean by this is best seen in the 2003 draft. The Bills had a clear need on their team for a DE, We had switched with GW ro a 4-3 froma 3-4 and made this more intensive DL usage switch at the exact same time as we were losing Wiley to FA, Big Ted and Bruce the year before as cap casualties and Hansen to retirement. We had chosen Denney in the 2002 draft but he had disappointed being inactive most of his first year. Most pundits had the Bills taking a DE in 2003 and talked about us taking Chris Kelsay as a reasonable 1st round choice for us who might be there for our 20 something pick even if there was the expected rush on DEs in this talented DL draft.

 

Surprising to virtually all we took WM which seemed off to folks since though WM was viewed as a top-5 talent before the injury that left him there for us, we had an RB coming off a Pro Bowl berth,

 

Fortnately TD is not a believer at all in the draft methodology that assigns particular values to particular slots. He not only chose WM specifically because TH was so good at RN we could afford not rush WM's development along, but he also recognized that because 8 other teams before the Bills had chosen DL players, they were quite unlikely to devote the salary a second round pick would be slotted to bring to another DL player.

 

As it turned out, Kelsay whom if TD had taken him with the pick used for WM would have complained (mostly folks would have whined he should have traded up to get one of the top 4 DLs chosen) he instead was able to have his cake and eat it to by getting the man our board showed as the best player available and also filled our need at DE,

 

Again as good as our use of the 1st round resource was in 2003 in terms of benefits for the team its hard to imagine doing better than adding a player who became a starter for out 2nd ranked statistically D in his second year with our second round choice.