Drafting Has Been A Problem For Decades

[loyal2dagame]

3 hours ago, IronMaidenBills said:

We should have traded Milano and Stevie while they still had a net positive gain. 

 

Sure,  start a thread about bad drafting and then say that the Bills should have traded the allpro, reasonable salary linebacker that they drafted.  

Makes perfect sense....

[Utah John]

3 hours ago, BillsShredder83 said:

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.

Nonsense.  Davis has had plenty of opportunities to develop.  The Bills are not the reason Davis couldn't stop dropping passes.  I wish I knew what IS the reason but at this point it's time to upgrade the WR room, in case last year was the real Gabe Davis coming to ligjt.

[uticaclub]

3 hours ago, BigAl2526 said:

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.

Allen and that's about it 

[Thurman#1]

6 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. 

 

 

Yes, "we've seen other teams draft late rounders and turn them into HOFs," as you say.

 

But it's rare. However, it is certainly a good possibility that it will happen with Milano. He was All-Pro last year.

 

Thought I'd do a quick research project on all of the many late round draft HOFers you're referring to as to be make it surprising to you that we haven't managed it yet in six years. They have to be retired for five years minimum, so it's no use looking at recent players. Thought I'd look at 1990 - 1999 just to see how often it happens. I looked at the fourth round and further back

 

1990 Shannon Sharpe, round 6 in a 12 round draft

1991 none

1992 none

1993 none, and the draft has been shortened to 8 rounds

1994 none

1995 Terrell Davis round 6

1996 Zack Thomas round 5

1997 none

1998 none

1998 none

 

In that same group of ten years, 37 HOFers were drafted in the first three rounds. And after that, three in the fourth and later.

 

So you're really waving a very rare phenomena around and pretending it happens all the time and it's surprising, when it's anything but.

 

 

 

Yes, we haven't flipped for a draft capital gain. That's because we don't do a lot of trading away of our best players. How many of our best have we traded. They make a goal of developing and keeping players. That's why we haven't.

 

"We draft 1-2nd round players and trade them for peanuts. The list is extensive," you say. I think it's fair to say that your definition of the word "extensive" is pretty much opposite of the one you'll find in the dictionary. Of all the twelve 1st and 2nd rounders drafted by this regime, Zay Jones, Cody Ford and nobody else have been traded. The other ten are all still on the team, though Tremaine is a free agent. Two is not @extensive" by any definition.

 

Your post is pretty much counter-factual about "extensive" and genuinely wacky about most of the rest of it.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Thurman#1

[Thurman#1]

40 minutes ago, uticaclub said:

Allen and that's about it 

 

 

No, that's nonsense. Yes, Allen is the linchpin. But it's not a mistake that people have consistently been putting us in the top three of roster strength the last couple of years. The whole roster is strong.

 

58 minutes ago, Utah John said:

Nonsense.  Davis has had plenty of opportunities to develop.  The Bills are not the reason Davis couldn't stop dropping passes.  I wish I knew what IS the reason but at this point it's time to upgrade the WR room, in case last year was the real Gabe Davis coming to ligjt.

 

 

If last year was the real Gabe Davis, they got a guy in the fourth round who is a legitimate #2 receiver. That's really good.

 

He may get better, or may not, but he was a good acquisition and is now a good receiver. Not great, certainly. But absolutely good.

 

Yes, I'd like to see them use some resources on the receiver room. But that's more about not having much beyond Diggs and Davis and a very young Shakir.

 

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by Thurman#1

[PBF81]

7 hours ago, BigAl2526 said:

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.

 

Yes, Allen.  

 

He's carrying the water for the entire team, particularly in the playoffs where the D goes on vacation.  

 

He overcomes our mediocre OL, competes to be our leading rusher, and even has to overcome our coaching decisions at times.  

 

 

Edited March 9, 2023 by PBF81

[Bill from NYC]

8 hours ago, Victory Formation said:

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?

 

 

Right. 2017 was great. We didn't need Patrick Mahomes. What we did need was the 8th defensive back selected in that draft.   

[MJS]

The success of a team is determined by how many players they trade for draft picks?

 

The Bills have tons of good players that they drafted the in thus regime. And they kept them because they are good players!

[colin]

a big issue imo is that we simply have not gotten enough playmakers or big bodies.  parcells had his planet argument, basically that there are only so many athletic dancing bear types to play DT, OT, maybe IOL on the planet.  we've simply not put enough resources, nor hit enough, on those positions.  If we kept teller over spain (how the heck did that mistake get made?) i'll admit the numbers would look a good bit better, but we didn't.  on the playmaker side, we got the greatest play maker to ever do it in allen, and they get big credit for that, but at least two of the 3 rbs taken in the first 3 rounds have not been enough, knox is nice but not a world beater, and we just aren't scary beyond that anyhow.

 

the reality is if we draft a stud or two this year, or if elam and cook and a couple other guys ball out (and spencer brown becomes a monster because his back is fixed) that goes a real long way to fixing our issues.

[Chuck Schick]

Every NFL team has more misses than hits in the draft.  And then add in guys like Zay Jones (sort of) and Wyatt Teller, or on the flip side Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, and you can see how different a player can be perceived from his early career to just a few years down the road.

 

[ddaryl]

Beane has proven he is not real good at drafting. 

We have lots of holes because many of the players he has selected just have not reached expectation.

 

Our OL is a disaster because of the piss poor player selection and even FA's have been underwhelming 

DL should be way more consistent than what is based on the amount of capital we have spent here

WR needs a bonafide #1B to go along with a much needed improved OL

and TE... we could be better here


Now with holes coming up in our LB position as well a S with the most likely loss of Edmunds and Poyer Beane will have to have his best offseason to fill all those holes 

So I can't even fathom what it would take to have excess players to trade for more day #1 and #2 picks as I would just like to have no holes

[Bigvinny]

Chiefs are making the Bills look stupid. Every draft pick they had last year made plays in the AFC title game and Super Bowl. And they have 12 picks this year. Meanwhile where was Elam, Bernard, the rapist punter ? How does a 3rd round LB not see the field all season ? Tenuta didn't make the team, that's poor scouting.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Bigvinny

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

What does the OP say to the organizations that drafted Rosen, Darnold, Mayfield, Zach Wilson?  Is whiffing on more marquee positions a greater indictment of the organization?

*
Too little scouting, too much 'Mel Kiper Jr.' reliance?

*
Too damn many variables for this hayseed (me) to ponder.

[SoCal Deek]

Here it is a nutshell, and in this order: 

 

1. Without Allen, the Bills are not a playoff team.

2. Without Brady leaving NE, the Bills are not winning the Division.

3. Without McD and McB, the Bills are a perennial sub-500 record. 

[Big Turk]

11 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. 

 

Pretty much every team over the past 2 decades could say the same thing...unlike popular belief, teams don't consistently draft great over long periods of time.  Sometimes it goes in spurts where you might have 2 or 3 really good drafts, but often times those are followed by 2 or 3 meh ones.  Over 20 years(decades as you say), it mostly balances out.

 

Sorry to blow your premise up, but that pretty much applies unilaterally.

Edited March 9, 2023 by Big Turk

[I'm Spartacus]

Is our poor drafting all on Beane, or do we have poor talent evaluators in the scouting department? Maybe a combo of both.

[SoCal Deek]

Just now, I'm Spartacus said:

Is our poor drafting all on Beane, or do we have poor talent evaluators in the scouting department? Maybe a combo of both.

I agreed with your take, but you left out the player development/coaching staff AFTER these guys are drafted. 

[Rigotz]

Andre Reed… hall of famer drafted in the 4th round.

 

Kyle Williams … all-pro drafted in the 5th round and possibly a hall of famer on a team that didn’t suck so bad.

Taron Johnson, Dawson Knox, Gabe Davis… all late round guys who will make $10M+. 
 

It’s luck and we’ve been fine. We drafted a top 3 QB and several other great players and are knocking on the door of the Super Bowl every year.

[Matt_In_NH]

People have unrealistic drafting expectations

[LABILLBACKER]

Having the worst scouts in the NFL will do that.