Sisyphean Bills

Sounds more like Poz is giving an honest self assessment that falls pretty much in lock-step agreement with what some of his critics have said about his play this past season. Which is stronger? Apple A vs. apple B? I'll vote for the apple.

It's not really "a wash" to exchange a LT for a RG as line positions are not completely interchangeable. It's like saying it's a wash to trade your QB for a good blocking FB because they both line up in the backfield.

Fixed.

So, in summary, "Posluszny says, 'I suck.'" Well, maybe his recognition skills aren't as bad as some thought after all.

Exactly, right. It's clearly better to keep an aging asset on a 4-12 team that (let's say) has trade value and who's career will be all but finished by the time the team is good, than it would be to trade him for a draft pick / younger player that could grow along with the rest of the team that is being molded. I mean it's not like in 4 years anybody might say, "we're not that far away, we just need a couple more players" or anything.

I was being sarcastic. If everything goes perfectly according to Buddy's plan, we're not going to be in a position to truly compete for 4 years. By that time, he's well on the downside of his career if not done. So, the answer to the question "Do you trade him for the future?" has an obvious answer. Whether one wants to think he's such a dynamic tour de force player that he forces Bill Belichick to completely change his schemes to account for him or not.

He's untradeable. Who else would run those go routes and contribute to almost 3% of the offense? Who else is going to run those deep routes to open up the other side of the field for the intermediate game? You know, all those successful 7 step pass plays where our QB has ample time in the pocket to wait for coverages to close up.

Well, you got Chris Kelsay, Ryan Denney, and Aaron Maybin to get the conversation started. Denney actually had a decent year, not getting cut by the Texans until October.

When the Bills started the season in free fall, there were those that jokingly posted that going 0-16 was The Plan that Nix and Gailey had masterminded so that they could draft Luck or 'insert top QB name here'. Actually, I'm not sure if they were joking.

Disagree. It's patently obvious that QB is the most prized position on a football team. Anybody that thinks you can win in the modern NFL without a QB is deluding themselves. Obviously, a laughingstock franchise like the Matt "0-16 Architect" Millen led Lions made horrible errors in judgement, but even the Lions are not so timid that they simply ignore the QB position since the year the team was founded. The Lions have in fact drafted 2 top 5 QBs in the last 10 years. The Falcons have also. If it doesn't go well, it sets the team back and they are picking at the top of the draft again, but they don't take their ball and go home to design a new uniform. The Bills haven't spent their first overall pick on a QB since 1960. Everybody knows QBs can be busts. It's a very demanding position. That doesn't mean a franchise has to stick its head in the sand and be forever afraid that drafting a bust at QB is somehow worse than drafting a DE that can't play football without a game controller in his hand. From a positive viewpoint, the Bills drafted 2 1st round QBs in the last 28 years and 1 of them is in the Hall-of-Fame. That's a good thing. It's time to do it again. (Assuming there is a QB that grades out that high, obviously.)

True. Maybe he can learn to play TE? Buddy said at the Senior Bowl that it will take 4 years to get the right players for the defense. So, after 4 years of finding players to field a Tampa-2 defense, they embark on a 4 year plan to build a 3-4 defense for which they didn't really have any of the right pieces in place. Maybe they'll reverse course and go back to the Tampa-2. Or maybe they'll get a new wild hair, and run the 46 defense, stop the run, and get shredded by that "new fangled" short passing game.

Super Bowl!

Well, we always have our Hall of Fame VP of College Scouting to lean on. "He just sights the targets in the cross hairs; he doesn't pull the trigger."

Gailey already made said comment at the Senior Bowl. Well, the comment wasn't that he wanted said player but, just that the spread option running QB was coming and the choice (implication) was to be ready for it (smart) or not (dumb).

Generally, I think regardless of position, you'll find that the better players go early in the draft. The draft is hardly a perfect science, of course, but it isn't a total crap shoot (rolling dice) like some want to portray either. That's what makes the Bills futility in the draft all the more glaring. Just based on chance, they should find a really good player every 2 or 3 years. Instead the Bills find bust after bust after bust. To paraphrase someone, "Even the Raiders get it right once in a while. Now, don't say I said that."

I still believe that it is in their long-term best interest for the Bills to trade him. The decision to go 3-4 was made (agree or disagree with that decision as you will) and a large chunk of a draft class used to support that decision as well as several FA signings and a waiver wire claim. Like other situations with this team, an organization has to make some hard calls at times in order to move forward. We're not going to win the Super Bowl as this team currently stands, so who're we fooling? The cynic would note that the Bills will just let him walk when his contract is up anyway.

In other words, we don't have the players to play either defense well (see our run defense for evidence) and use a "hybrid" scheme out of necessity. Our defense is a sack with a couple of blocks, a couple of tinker toys, a couple of legos, a rubber band, a screw, a nut, and a few dust bunnies. Waffling is about the worst possible course to take. Decide what you want to be and do it. Flip flopping and trying to make oranges taste like avocados is a good way to guarantee failure.

Or we could go the other way rather than mixing apples and oranges in terms of skill sets. So: 1 ILB; 1 OLB. As far as tweeners that are guys with a LB (or S) body type that speed rush the QB, I count a total of 0 in the top 5. I think your point is dead nuts on regardless. Edit: One might imagine a new GM taking over a bad team and seeing Aaron Maybin available at the #3 draft position and turning to his All World VP of College Scouting and simply saying, "Maybinot."

There were only 2 LBs. One is an inside LB (Hawk). The other is an OLB in a 4-3 and really not a DE with his hand off the ground. (Edit: I believe the DEs are listed as DE because they play/played with their hand on the ground. If you think about it, not many teams draft projection tweeners in the top 5 picks, because ... well, it is a big gamble and can get you fired.) The point of looking at the top 5 picks is that these are the awful teams. The teams drafting in the top 5 suck and have a lot of problems. They are usually the teams with coaching changes, legitimate front office purges, etc. The data is pretty clear. These teams go and try and find a franchise QB, a LT to keep the QB from getting destroyed (see the David Carr experience), or a pass rusher to try and kill the other team's QB. In the modern NFL, teams simply don't look to power football pieces to build their team around (blocking backs, H-backs, TEs, pulling guards and centers just aren't even considered). Even areas where one might suspect that the passing emphasis could have an impact, like WR and CB, simply aren't a point of emphasis either. (Unless your name is Matt Millen, that is, and you're building the perfect 0-16 team.) PS: The lack of emphasis on the LB position can be seen as a logical reaction to the deemphasis of the running game. A team's nickel and dime DBs are likely to see plenty of playing time during a season. AJ Hawk, for example, sits on the bench and watches the game when the Packers are playing a team like the Eagles, that throw, throw, and throw. 30 years ago, an NFL team would carry 3 WRs, 3 TEs, 6 or 7 RBs, 6 or 7 LBs (for a 4-3), and only 7 or 8 DBs. The trend of the game is pretty obvious when you look at those numbers compared to today. A question I posed a while back was whether someone is going to go counter-trend in this business and start taking advantage of these trends in the NFL.

His function on the team was to be a veteran QB that could come in if Cutler went down with very few reps. He showed he was totally unprepared to do so. So, yeah. His career is over. (Unless Chuck Lester left him the pictures.)

Researching a bit... G 0 (the last guard to go in the top 5 was Ken Huff in 1975). C 0 (the last C to go in the top 5 was Bob Johnson in 1968). FB 0 (does anyone even use this position, let alone draft it?). TE 0 (2 were picked at 6 though). S 2 (Eric Berry and Sean Taylor). CB 2 (Jammer and Newman). QB 13; T 9; DE 6; RB 6; DT 5; WR 5; LB 2; K 0; P 0. This data nicely supports what some have been saying around here. The high value positions in rebuilding a franchise are to get a QB, a LT, and a pass rusher. You can go off the map with a scat back like Reggie Bush and maybe the other pieces come together. You can even go totally rogue like Matt Millen and take WRs but that didn't exactly pan out for him. FWIW: The Chargers took a RB and two CBs the first 3 years that the Butler Group was down there. So far, Buddy has taken a RB as his first move in Buffalo. And while we are on RB; of those 6 RBs, 3 were taken in 1 year: Ronnie Brown, Cedric Benson, and Cadillac Williams and Tomlinson is the only one that really had an above average career.

Ralph is cheap!

Rumor has it the Bills are looking at transporter technology. So they can get to the podium even faster.

The transition back to a 4-3 comment was ... interesting.

Nothing could be further from reality. Personally, they could change uniforms, colors, etc. every week. Just adding a riff to the melody that was already playing, dude. That's because trying to sell new, more popular, uniforms is unrelated to a lockout. Of course, selling those new jerseys means money will exchange hands. That means someone will benefit. Who? Why? Oh, because it is just time. Everybody knows it. Like the Steelers, Colts, and Packers change their uniforms every few years. Pandering to the general market to improve sales. Hmm, yes, I think you are getting warmer... ... and then, I can't believe how far off the mark you are.