Drafting Has Been A Problem For Decades

[Milanos Milano]

Over the years we’ve seen other teams draft late rounders and turn them into HOFs or trade them for 1-3rd round picks. I can hardly think of anyone we have drafted that we ended up flipping for a draft capital gain. 
Diggs was a 5th rounder and traded for a 1st. Why can’t we have nice things like that? 
Instead we draft 1-2nd round players and trade them for peanuts. The list is extensive. It’s primarily why we have never won a super bowl. Probably the #1 reason. If it wasn’t for Allen, we’d be in for a load of hurt. 

[Goin Breakdown]

First. Awesome user name!!

idk why but Matt Milano comes to mind right off the bat. I'd rather keep a gem than trade him, but I get what your saying. Stevie Johnson count?

[Milanos Milano]

Just now, Goin Breakdown said:

First. Awesome user name!!

idk why but Matt Milano comes to mind right off the bat. I'd rather keep a gem than trade him, but I get what your saying. Stevie Johnson count?

Nothing wrong with keeping gems, but a big part of being a GM is knowing when to hold them and when to trade to optimize peak value. We are NOT attrition in well enough as we cycle and it’s why we are beginning to have cap issues again. Cap issues are directly tied to poor drafting. 
We should have traded Milano and Stevie while they still had a net positive gain. 

[NewEra]

38 minutes ago, IronMaidenBills said:

Over the years we’ve seen other teams draft late rounders and turn them into HOFs or trade them for 1-3rd round picks. I can hardly think of anyone we have drafted that we ended up flipping for a draft capital gain. 
Diggs was a 5th rounder and traded for a 1st. Why can’t we have nice things like that? 
Instead we draft 1-2nd round players and trade them for peanuts. The list is extensive. It’s primarily why we have never won a super bowl. Probably the #1 reason. If it wasn’t for Allen, we’d be in for a load of hurt. 

Probably because we draft too many RBs 🤣 

[JoPoy88]

41 minutes ago, IronMaidenBills said:

Over the years we’ve seen other teams draft late rounders and turn them into HOFs or trade them for 1-3rd round picks. I can hardly think of anyone we have drafted that we ended up flipping for a draft capital gain. 
Diggs was a 5th rounder and traded for a 1st. Why can’t we have nice things like that? 
Instead we draft 1-2nd round players and trade them for peanuts. The list is extensive. It’s primarily why we have never won a super bowl. Probably the #1 reason. If it wasn’t for Allen, we’d be in for a load of hurt. 

Because the draft is a crapshoot. Always has been. It ain’t that sinister. Sometimes you luck out and get Tom Brady in the 6th. Sometimes you draft Mike Williams. 

[Milanos Milano]

4 minutes ago, NewEra said:

Probably because we draft too many RBs 🤣 

The problem is we don’t take the right one. Just like I was pretty high on Tariq Woolen. 
Just like I was high on Breece Hall. 
 

Just like I’m high on Avila, Hyatt and Flowers. Hope Beane listens to me. 

Who needs the Double Tree when we have the Hyatt. 

[JoPoy88]

12 minutes ago, IronMaidenBills said:

The problem is we don’t take the right one. Just like I was pretty high on Tariq Woolen. 
Just like I was high on Breece Hall. 
 

Just like I’m high on Avila, Hyatt and Flowers. Hope Beane listens to me. 

Who needs the Double Tree when we have the Hyatt. 

lol he won’t. And we’ll note these three you name and see how you did in a couple years.

[78thealltimegreat]

The Bills top picks in recent years have been hit and miss. Beanes sweet spot has been in the 3-4-5 rounds where he’s gotten the Dawson Knox, Gabe Davis, Dane Jackson’s of the world.

Beane has a blind spot for running backs his coaching staff doesn’t use. It’s not that they can’t play they just don’t use them. 

[BillsShredder83]

1 hour ago, IronMaidenBills said:

Nothing wrong with keeping gems, but a big part of being a GM is knowing when to hold them and when to trade to optimize peak value. We are NOT attrition in well enough as we cycle and it’s why we are beginning to have cap issues again. Cap issues are directly tied to poor drafting. 
We should have traded Milano and Stevie while they still had a net positive gain. 

milano wasnt someone we could trade. he leaves, we need a new system, or another high pick LB replacement (would anyone have liked that scenario?). we got rid of one starting LB, now we need two.

 

milano and maine are asked to do a lot on this defense, paying them:

a. allows us to run the defense we prefer

b. at the time, pay one 'super backer' solid money, instead of pay an avg salary to two more LB's, to play next to edmunds

 

that contract was a no brainer at the time. for the same reasons he was valuable to us, is the same reason his trade value wouldve been worth chit.  nobody is trading good picks for LBs, especially to have to pay them, andddddd proli change your defense to maximize the trade

[JoPoy88]

1 hour ago, IronMaidenBills said:

Nothing wrong with keeping gems, but a big part of being a GM is knowing when to hold them and when to trade to optimize peak value. We are NOT attrition in well enough as we cycle and it’s why we are beginning to have cap issues again. Cap issues are directly tied to poor drafting. 
We should have traded Milano and Stevie while they still had a net positive gain. 

lol I love the nuts on you, claiming that you know better than Beane because why? Breece Hall was good for 7 games?  And you “called it”? Honestly the level of delusion is borderline creepy.

[Goin Breakdown]

1 hour ago, IronMaidenBills said:

Nothing wrong with keeping gems, but a big part of being a GM is knowing when to hold them and when to trade to optimize peak value. We are NOT attrition in well enough as we cycle and it’s why we are beginning to have cap issues again. Cap issues are directly tied to poor drafting. 
We should have traded Milano and Stevie while they still had a net positive gain. 

Nahh. Cant trade Milano, a great player and leave it to draft his replacement if they draft poorly. Doesn't add up. We look at our team and see our flaws but if we were tuned into other teams we'd see that they have just as many misses. NE is a good example of this. Brady covered up for the fact that they really didn't draft well either. 

[Victory Formation]

It’s almost like McD’s best draft was in 2017, when Whaley was still GM. Shoot, we did somehow manage to draft Nathan Peterman in the 5th round.

All jokes aside, we drafted Tre White, Dion Dawkins and Matt Milano that year. Has Beane been able to outdo that draft since he’s been here? Major kudos for drafting Allen, but what else has he done outside of that?

 

 

[Bob Chandler's Hands]

29 minutes ago, JoPoy88 said:

lol I love the nuts on you, claiming that you know better than Beane because why? Breece Hall was good for 7 games?  And you “called it”? Honestly the level of delusion is borderline creepy.

He'd have drafted better than the Bills for DECADES! He's omniscient and omnipotent!

[BillsShredder83]

53 minutes ago, 78thealltimegreat said:

The Bills top picks in recent years have been hit and miss. Beanes sweet spot has been in the 3-4-5 rounds where he’s gotten the Dawson Knox, Gabe Davis, Dane Jackson’s of the world.

Beane has a blind spot for running backs his coaching staff doesn’t use. It’s not that they can’t play they just don’t use them. 

We just dont play rookies to our own damn detriment (exponentially). 

 

Lets use Gabe as an example. Small playing time as a rookie, made nice plays, wouldve liked to see more and help him grow. Year 2, sits behind old ass WR who kills drives for us. Finally, late season, he gets the reins, looks great, and has a 3 (4?) td game.  Welp, we couldve used that that year.  Gabe couldve used the playing time to learn, too little too late.

 

Last year, fully expected to be a stud based on a small body of work. Then we all know what happened.

 

Dude barely had a chance to learn the game two years/grow.  Year 3, we do nothing to address the position assuming what we think is a stud.  We know how that went.

 

Imagine if we'd given him time to learn, we dicked around with his development so much, it stunted him, we made a dumb decision based on a small body of work. Caused us to ignore the position. Seems like steady playing time for two years would've solved a lot of this!  We failed to develop and properly scout our own players abilities because of it. 

 

Now its year 4, we've wasted his rookie contract, and certainly have another conundrum about paying him if he has an above average year as a #2.  Hes going to want to get paid, and we wont have the proper body of work to properly decide on if he's then worth #2 money.

 

Lessen learned! 

 

*Year 1 Shakir enters room to the sound of breaking glass, strobe lights, fog machines*

 

Elam.  Cook.  Moss.

[John from Riverside]

1 hour ago, IronMaidenBills said:

The problem is we don’t take the right one. Just like I was pretty high on Tariq Woolen. 
Just like I was high on Breece Hall. 
 

Just like I’m high on Avila, Hyatt and Flowers. Hope Beane listens to me. 

Who needs the Double Tree when we have the Hyatt. 

I’m sure that Brandon being is just staying up at night awake because he’s not listening to you

[NewEra]

1 hour ago, IronMaidenBills said:

The problem is we don’t take the right one. Just like I was pretty high on Tariq Woolen. 
Just like I was high on Breece Hall. 
 

Just like I’m high on Avila, Hyatt and Flowers. Hope Beane listens to me. 

Who needs the Double Tree when we have the Hyatt. 

This thread morphed from a “we suck at drafting thread” to a lamp real quick

[BADOLBILZ]

2 hours ago, IronMaidenBills said:

Over the years we’ve seen other teams draft late rounders and turn them into HOFs or trade them for 1-3rd round picks. I can hardly think of anyone we have drafted that we ended up flipping for a draft capital gain. 
Diggs was a 5th rounder and traded for a 1st. Why can’t we have nice things like that? 
Instead we draft 1-2nd round players and trade them for peanuts. The list is extensive. It’s primarily why we have never won a super bowl. Probably the #1 reason. If it wasn’t for Allen, we’d be in for a load of hurt. 

 

 

They turned Peerless Price into a first rounder.    They then stupidly used it on a RB.

 

They SHOULD have franchised and traded both Nate Clements AND Stephon Gilmore.........just bad decision making by the personnel departments to let them leave and become the most sought after free agents on the market in those years when they DEFINITELY had big trade value.

 

At the time most people on TSW were hoping that letting those highly sought after CB's be free was going to build up goodwill in the free agent community and pay dividends.    What a crock of sh!t thought that was.     Nobody doesn't choose to join a team in free agency because they used a franchise tag on some other player.

 

 

[BigAl2526]

The current regime at OBD must have done something right two turn a team mired in 2 decades of mediocrity into a perenial playoff team and division champion.

[BillsFanForever19]

To me it's more about bad luck. Outside of doubling down on DE's and selecting Boogie Basham in 2021 instead of taking Creed Humphrey and reaching for Terrel Bernard in Round 3 2022 instead of selecting Dylan Parham - I haven't thought any of their picks were bad choices. 

 

From 2017-2022 - they've selected highly rated players who more often than not were good value picks. But for some reason or another, they just haven't panned out as well as expected.

 

The Draft is a crapshoot and unfortunately, we haven't been getting much luck at the table.

Edited March 9, 2023 by BillsFanForever19

[Doc Brown]

Drafting three running backs in the first round was one of many reasons for the playoff drought.  At least those days are over (I think).  We got a 1st and a 4th for Jason Peters who was undrafted.  Him and Peerless are all I got.