Sisyphean Bills

We switched defenses between his first year and his second. Words from his own mouth: he was far more comfortable in the Jauron defense; it was dirt simple. Remember that under Jauron, the Bills defense was a hospital ward by the end of each season and played a lot of guys off the street, guys that played real hard, and some with almost no practice time. Keeping the D overly simple let them pull this accomplishment off.

A stronger case for making a move to sell tickets was when they brought in Terrell Owens on a 1 year, $6.5M contract to a totally dysfunctional offense with no identity or leadership. The mastermind behind that move was none other than Ralph Wilson himself. TO was marketed and people did buy.

The Chargers OL isn't all that period. Rivers is well above the norm as far as operating out of a dirty backfield. Their best OL missed time with a contract holdout, too.

OK. Makes mo' sense now, Sphero.

You do realize that you are applying the same principle you renounce in the first sentence to defend Modrak in the second, right? Of course he had something to do with the busts. Choosing not to do anything (the "nothing to do with it" argument of his defenders) is a choice; and, he was sitting right there at the same table. I'm not sure why one would bother to defend Modrak. He was fired by his friend Nix. Circumstantially, the draft class didn't include a single player from the Northeast or Midwest, areas of the country Modrak scouted (e.g., Gabbert).

Yes. It's called "Wheelhouse 7".

Speaking of which, wasn't there a coach that said "We're not losers anymore!" when his team finished 8-8 and got fired?

Good call. He uses the scouting information much differently than do some others. Instead of trying to use it to decide which player is the best, the Patriots use the information to create groups of options. So, when the phone rings and someone wants to trade up, they can see that they have so many players ranked in a particular range, and know how many players at their positions of interest fall within the relevant window. So, say they want a DL or DB and that they are being asked to trade down 5 spots. Now if they know that there are 3 DL and 3 DB rated in that range and/or maybe a couple of others that slipped and/or there is an active run on, say, QB where players are being reached for, then no matter what other decisions are made by the other teams, they will end up with one of the guys they really want. They might not get the best of the 6, but they get a player that is only graded slightly lower.

Thankfully, they decided he couldn't play in a 4-3 scheme like he did in college.

The B side of this one has some song about Dick Jauron being like Bill Belichick.

7) Buddy scouted him and the Chargers drafted him. He's a Buddy guy.

Nah. He woke up just in time to get the Cornell Green multi-year deal put together.

as is evident with fewer wins. (Actually, I agree that it was an organizational failure and I hope these changes are for the better as well. Something had to change, even if was just to give the appearance of progress. )

To be incontrovertible, the knowledge of what he thought about the last ten years of picks would have to come from documents made before those drafts occurred. Otherwise, it is an exercise in he said vs. he said. Take the Maybin example. Today, one is hard pressed to find someone that admits they thought Maybin was a great pick. When he was taken though, many people were gushing with praise for the selection and thought the Bills had added a great player. Among them was Tom Modrak, as quoted in an article. What is clear is the results. It also appears from the accounts that Modrak was not one to "bang the table" or otherwise put his sanity/expertise, if it was there, to the test, but rather to follow along and go wherever the whims of madness happened to take them all. Not exactly what some people would want out of a VP.

Did anyone claim that Modrak made the picks? That question implicitly contradicts the defense that the picks "weren't his". Of course, it is clear he was a part of a dysfunctional process that led to a decade of 1st round picks, the very best of which is an average player. But let's consider the later rounds... To balance the scales further, I did a little research. I looked at a sampling of 3 playoff teams, another team that finished in the bottom 3, and a team known for historically terrible drafting. I counted non-first round starters on those teams from the same range of years as the OP (i.e., I excluded the 2010 class). What I found is the success in the later rounds and UDFA seems to be much ado about nothing. The playoff teams I sampled had nearly as many non-first round starters as the Bills. What was really obvious is that their first round picks were dramatically better than the Bills and those guys were starters and team leaders. So, the bar is higher on these teams than in Buffalo -- to be a non-first rounder and earn a starting job on a team that makes the playoffs annually is a higher bar than a bad team that is perpetually rebuilding. Now, the other team that drafted in the top 3 this year that I looked at actually had more non-first round draft picks starting than the Bills. They clearly did a better job with staffing a roster with their draft picks than the Bills did and were in the same boat as far as results on the field. Lastly, there was the franchise that is generally regarded as having a lousy track record in the draft. This seemed to bear out in this simple study as well, they have fewer non-first round starters than all the other teams I looked at. Like the Bills, their first round was a sequence of mistakes and miscalculations. Much of their starting lineup was rounded out by free agents. Like the Bills some of those free agents were more aptly termed cast-offs. Anyway, I'm not convinced the Modrak era in Buffalo showed that the Bills did a better than typical job than any other NFL teams in the later rounds and certainly not when one considers that the bar was lower in Buffalo -- finding a starting job on a bad team that has struck out on most of its first round picks is arguably an easier task than to do the same on a team that is in the playoffs every season and drafts excellent starters with its 1st round picks. Now to be totally balanced, this does show that the Modrak era wasn't worse than other teams using this data. So, neither worse nor better. This last draft, with every player taken from the southeast without exception, pretty much summed it up as far as Modrak's influence.

But, you not only drink the Kool-Aid, you mix it up in huge vats, and have been known to take late night swims in the stuff. (Just messing with you, Promo.)

I'd change the top of that to Evans, Whitner, Wood, McKelvin, and McGahee. Evans can't help what he is, but he does have great speed and can run a 9 route. Whitner was obviously a reach for where he was picked, but he is a solid player. Wood and McKelvin may become solid players yet, but drafting a RG in the 1st round is effectively a misfire in my book, and McKelvin has only shown tiny glimpses of being any good so far. McGahee was a luxury pick for a bad team with a head coach going into a lame duck situation and for whom he'd never play a down. Trent Edwards and CJ Ah-You weren't much to write home about in terms of compensation for this 1st round pick.

Nix said the Bills weren't going to be players in free agency when he was introduced as the new GM. He also mentioned sleeping through the free agency period last year.

My wild guess is that he felt Modrak was doing a good job after talking to him. He leaned on Modrak for last year's draft. He didn't know how that draft would turn out the day after the draft, obviously. One year later, he knew going into this draft that he was going to lean on Chan for this draft and fire Modrak as soon as it was over.

Buddy could have fired him after the draft last year, so I'm not sure the end of the draft timing really explains anything. Indeed, the whole "bridge year" process is a bit strange, especially given the age of the owner. With Buddy's experience being in the area of scouting, one would've thought that would be an area where the record of fail would've lead him to act swiftly and decisively to clean house and bring in his own people. He didn't and it's anyone's guess as to why it didn't happen. Money? The guy he wanted wasn't available? Ralph/Brandon pushing to keep the status quo? Buddy's conservative nature? Whatever. Modrak is finally gone, and that is a good thing in my book. The fumes of drafting Donovan McNabb finally ran out.

I posted that same sentiment about the OL way back when Jim Kelly was still the QB. Then, it even seemed fairly plausible after the OL started playing well in December that they should've built on that for the next year. But, the reality was that they came out flatter than ever the next season. I do anticipate that the run defense will take some strides forward this year (if there is football). That was the focus of this draft.

I joked that he was locked in the men's room for this draft. Guess I was right on that one.

I have to disagree with your take on Edwards. Edwards got the ball out quickly because he knew he was going to take serious damage if he did not. (The fact that he still got a few concussions is incredible and a strong argument as to why the Bills front office, one that continues even now to go without passable talent to protect the flanks of the OL, earned the skepticism it gets.) Unfortunately, that meant most of his passes were measured in inches, not yards. Since the ball really never left the vicinity, opposing defenses could stack the box and chew up the "offense" easily. To the OP. There is an old adage, "if you aren't improving then you are regressing." The Bills spent virtually their entire draft on the defense, but it is also true that the offense was near the bottom of the NFL last year as well. The adage holds some truth to it because the opposition in the NFL is very good at what they do. So, if you're plan is just to come out and do the same thing you did last year, then you're just making it easy for them. Indeed, they probably already have a plan to stop it. OTOH, perhaps the Bills plan to add to the offense in free agency, though Buddy has said he's not interested in free agency many times.

NS has kicked before, yes. He was actually a soccer player. Not sure about the Lions part...

Did you know that North Carolina had as many players drafted in this draft as Alabama and Auburn combined?