Article about DT, the draft and McCargo

[Pyrite Gal]

Lastly, I refuse to label the second day picks (Simpson, Ellison, K. Williams, Pennington) as long term starters. While I hope they amount to that and contribute to this team making the playoffs, they still should be regarded as little more than stop-gaps until a better player is acquired. We'll see how talented they are after opponents have seen them for a season.

 

Certainly anyone with any common sense refuses to label any of the second day picks (and actually even first day pick Whitner) as long term starters. In addition any one with common sense refuse to label McCargo as a bust. Anyone who would make such a declaration likely would have cut Moulds after two non-productive seasons.

 

Its still to early for anyone to hyperventilate either positively or negatively over last year's draft.

 

However the fact they got so many rookie starters on a team which improved its record significantly from the year before (two additional wins is actually a lot in today's NFL and doing against competition that performed very well generally makes this improvement significant) inoculates them quite a bit if they go DT again in the first round.

[BillsVet]

Forgive me for being a bit pessimistic Pyrite Gal...I've seen very little from this team since 1999. It's not all Marv's fault, his absence ironically parallels their inability to go deep into the playoffs. I'm not giving him a pass on these picks and free agency though because he's Marv.

 

I have not labeled McCargo a bust. Surely that's premature. However, I merely opined that as a 1st rounder, he did not start the season, nor did I witness him get much PT before an injury ended his season. Players come back from injury, but the alarming point here is this foot was the same injury he suffered in college. That is not good and hopefully not chronic. I have no doubt the team knew of this injury and figured it would not prevent him from playing or they wouldn't have drafted him in the first. The worst thing would be for injury to cut his career short.

 

As for those 2nd day picks, these guys started because our depth consisted of few dependable NFL veterans. Pennington played due to an inneffective LT who became the LG. Ellison played because of injury. K. Simpson played because of injury. And K. Williams played because of injury and veteran/1st round pick ineffectivess. I agree they exceeded expectations. Now we'll see how great their upside is and how much better they get.

 

I merely want to demonstrate reality and not depend on 4-5 4th-7th round picks to provide the type of play to win more games. Indy along with most NFL teams have a majority of their players come from the 1-3rd rounds. That's where you'll find most of the starters in the NFL. Sure there are exceptions, but the most talented players go in those rounds. The days of drafting Howard Ballard/Nate Odomes type talent in the later rounds are about over. Scouting departments are too thorough. Rarely do any NFL teams glean more than 3 starters from a draft. And I don't think Marv snared more than that for the long term.

 

And about this "progress" argument. I'll cite the Jets and Ravens as teams who made, in my estimation, "real progress." Both teams had at least a +6 in win differential since 2005. Both teams intoduced major changes into their systems, yet both had 10+ W's this year and a playoff berth. Next season, if Buffalo goes 9-7 and misses the playoffs, does that qualify as "progress" because they won 2 more games? Without question it does not.

 

Patience is a virtue. Increasingly, Bills fans are running out of it.

[Pyrite Gal]

Forgive me for being a bit pessimistic Pyrite Gal...I've seen very little from this team since 1999. It's not all Marv's fault, his absence ironically parallels their inability to go deep into the playoffs. I'm not giving him a pass on these picks and free agency though because he's Marv.

 

I have not labeled McCargo a bust. Surely that's premature. However, I merely opined that as a 1st rounder, he did not start the season, nor did I witness him get much PT before an injury ended his season. Players come back from injury, but the alarming point here is this foot was the same injury he suffered in college. That is not good and hopefully not chronic. I have no doubt the team knew of this injury and figured it would not prevent him from playing or they wouldn't have drafted him in the first. The worst thing would be for injury to cut his career short.

 

As for those 2nd day picks, these guys started because our depth consisted of few dependable NFL veterans. Pennington played due to an inneffective LT who became the LG. Ellison played because of injury. K. Simpson played because of injury. And K. Williams played because of injury and veteran/1st round pick ineffectivess. I agree they exceeded expectations. Now we'll see how great their upside is and how much better they get.

 

I merely want to demonstrate reality and not depend on 4-5 4th-7th round picks to provide the type of play to win more games. Indy along with most NFL teams have a majority of their players come from the 1-3rd rounds. That's where you'll find most of the starters in the NFL. Sure there are exceptions, but the most talented players go in those rounds. The days of drafting Howard Ballard/Nate Odomes type talent in the later rounds are about over. Scouting departments are too thorough. Rarely do any NFL teams glean more than 3 starters from a draft. And I don't think Marv snared more than that for the long term.

 

And about this "progress" argument. I'll cite the Jets and Ravens as teams who made, in my estimation, "real progress." Both teams had at least a +6 in win differential since 2005. Both teams intoduced major changes into their systems, yet both had 10+ W's this year and a playoff berth. Next season, if Buffalo goes 9-7 and misses the playoffs, does that qualify as "progress" because they won 2 more games? Without question it does not.

 

Patience is a virtue. Increasingly, Bills fans are running out of it.

 

No prob from my standpoint as I share your frustration, but I find personally that the pain of rooting for a team experiencing the playoff drought we have had to live through is actually best dealt with as you say by focusing on reality both the hopeful and the brutal reality.

 

Certainly one my consistent rants is that I think folks need to keep in mind that the draft is one thing but actually reality is something else. I agree that a first rounder should reasonably be expected to start and contribute immediately and that first day picks can reasonably be expected and judged to make the starting line-up at some point in their first year.

 

However, this is a mere fantasy league expectation/hope and in the end matters little compared to the reality of whether a player was good enough to start.

 

In general, I think almost all GMs would consider it a pretty good draft if half the players they selected actually ended up starting for the team (I certainly think that is a pretty good accomplishment). However, if that half the picks being starters all came from second day picks and the first day choices all disappointed, I think the reality is likely that it was a pretty good draft and the failure of all the first day picks is interesting and something to think about and work to improve, but still reality says it was a pretty good draft and its really more a fantasy league point of interest that the first day picks turned out to be the non-contributors.

 

Granted it is a legit point that the later picked players generally tend to be not as good as the earlier picked players and our drafter chose wrong on picks where they and their peers have the best chance to choose right. However, in assessing their choices if in fact they got a bunch of starters from their second day picks when they and their peers actually are more likely to choose non-contributors then kudos to our pickers as overall the reality simply is that half the guys they chose contributed. The misses happen and really is little more than woulda/coulda/shoulda second guessing in reality.

 

The fact that the late drafted players are generally less talented is a truth that should be analyzed and taken into account. However, the real way to do this is not estimating whether their picks did as expected (this can say as much about the errors of expectation as it can say about the absolute quality of their decisions) but in fact reality is found in whether the team improved and the quality of their opponents rather than an assessment of whether they met fan/pundit expectations which may have been simply wrong.

 

The reality is that the 2006 Bills team with a bunch of second day picks getting PT actually did improve by a couple of wins over the results of the 2005 team. Even better, I think this improvement is significant as half our games were against teams which made the playoffs (when the results for the total NFL pool is about 1/3 of teams make the playoffs so we produced two additional wins against opponents who produced better results that the league as a whole. In fact, of the 6 top seeds in the ADC we faced 5 of them and also the #1 NFC seed, the Bears,

 

It is true that a team can simply give starts to bad players so simply measuring whether the draftees made the team or whether they started is not an absolute measure of whether the picks made good contributions. However, I will give more creedance to the reality that the rookies got substantial PT and starts on a team that improved its record against winning opponents rather than get ones panties all in a wad over the fact that 2 of 3 first day choices had disappointing productivity for us. The reality simply is that though it is too early to draw any conclusions about any of these rookies for another couple of seasons, that for this one season this draft produced 4 definite starters as the off-season began (the draft saw Whitner and Simpson as the definite starters at S and Pennington the definite starter at RT and Williams the definite starter at RDT though this slot is probably the one most likely to see us go with someone else next season- but even in this case that new starter may actually be draftee McCargo if he recovers from injury and continues to turn the corner in his play as he seemed to be doing before the foot injury).

 

My guess is that Ellison goes back to being a back-up where he belongs, but actually Youbouty should at least take the psuedo starter role of being our nickel next year.

 

The reality is that it is a good drafting job when 8 of the 8 players chosen see some critical PT against opponents who had a good record and your team improved by a couple of games, The fact that the first day choice disappointed in general (though it is hard for me to see how one blames the Bills for the Youbouty pick not producing since this was due to life and not a self-induced or even injury problem.

 

I think if one is realistic this was simply an excellent draft. Could it have been better? Sure, but then we could have skipped Iraq, global climate change could have been avoided if we skipped the industrial revolution and a bunch of other woulda/coulda/shouldas.

[2020 Our Year For Sure]

I'm certain I'm in the minority here, but I'd rather see us take a DE at 12 than a DT.

 

In the cover 2, its imperative that you generate a pass rush with your front 4. I don't care if Kelsay and Denney combined for a decent sack total, the pressure just wasn't there from that side. The vast majority of the time, if Schobel couldn't get through, the opposing quarterback had a day and a half to sit back there and find an open guy, and thats unaccpetable. It isn't fair to Schobel to put that on him and it won't be enough for this defense to be top-notch.

 

With these things in mind, I say we let Kelsay walk in free agency, because he and Denney are strikingly similar players. Then we use the 12th overall draft pick on one of the highly-rated DEs. We sit tight at DT with McCargo coming back from injury, Williams getting into the strength and conditioning program (which most of us agree can help him), Triplett returning, and I'd advocate adding a free agent nose tackle (Ian Scott?) to replace Tim Anderson. With McCargo and Williams having a year's experience both in the NFL and in the cover 2, we should see some improvement. That's not to mention a solid nose tackle in Ian Scott replacing Tim Anderson, who just can't cut it.

 

I'll have Jamaal Anderson, please and thank you.

[BillsCelticsAngelsBama]

I'm certain I'm in the minority here, but I'd rather see us take a DE at 12 than a DT.

 

In the cover 2, its imperative that you generate a pass rush with your front 4. I don't care if Kelsay and Denney combined for a decent sack total, the pressure just wasn't there from that side. The vast majority of the time, if Schobel couldn't get through, the opposing quarterback had a day and a half to sit back there and find an open guy, and thats unaccpetable. It isn't fair to Schobel to put that on him and it won't be enough for this defense to be top-notch.

 

With these things in mind, I say we let Kelsay walk in free agency, because he and Denney are strikingly similar players. Then we use the 12th overall draft pick on one of the highly-rated DEs. We sit tight at DT with McCargo coming back from injury, Williams getting into the strength and conditioning program (which most of us agree can help him), Triplett returning, and I'd advocate adding a free agent nose tackle (Ian Scott?) to replace Tim Anderson. With McCargo and Williams having a year's experience both in the NFL and in the cover 2, we should see some improvement. That's not to mention a solid nose tackle in Ian Scott replacing Tim Anderson, who just can't cut it.

 

I'll have Jamaal Anderson, please and thank you.

There would seem to be more value in a DE than a DT, unless the Bills are in love with the kid from Louisville(if available). J. Anderson, G. Adams and the big guy from Nebraska (Carriker?) look impressive in clips. Surely one or more of the will be available at pick 12... if we go DL