Sisyphean Bills

Draft as many guys from Syracuse as possible because Coach Marrone "knows them". Go with what works.

I keep reading this subject line and thinking the OP is daring the front office to try and !@#$ up this next draft more than the 2000 draft -- the class of spare parts.

We could float the idea by Brandon. The concept would be to have the players sit there while fans buy time to come in and heckle the **** out of them. What's not to like? A few more bills in the old coffers.

On the OP: I don't know that Donte's comments really make all that much sense. The Bills were putting a number of young players on the field when Donte was drafted, so letting those inexperienced guys call the defense on the field sounds like a recipe for total disaster -- an incredibly Wannstedtian idea. Other than that, he's saying the 3-4 is better because they play various zone coverages whereas in Buffalo they played various zone coverages in a 4-3. Hunh? Oh wait, in San Francisco he has a better front 7 in front of him and doesn't have to read and diagnose to fill the Bob Sanders / Troy Polamalu role of covering up mistakes made by an undersized front. His record says he is one of the worst head coaches of all time to have been an NFL head coach as long as he was. (His inability to hire capable coaches on the offensive side of the ball being a factor.) On the other hand, he is a great person and an average to good defensive coordinator and he can work with & get production out of a fairly young group. Agreed. It's interesting how Rich Kotite is cited as the worst head coach in history for failing with the Big Apple Jets, yet guys that posted comparable records as the head coach in Buffalo get elevated to mediocre and just about average.

Well, they got their guy to change the light bulbs.

It was a big shock when the Bills passed on Ngata/Cutler to take Whitner. I had seen enough when I saw other teams game plan to isolate Whitner in coverage and cruise down the field for quick scores. From these stats, it doesn't look like he's morphed into something new and shiny either.

On the other hand, the Bills already had a 9 route runner in Lee Evans. So they drafted the possession guy that ran like Lurch.

You know what they say. In a draft weak in WR talent, draft 2 of them.

How about 1970? Threw away the #1 pick on OJ's best friend.

And, he didn't play 1 game for the Cincinnati Commandos...

Is it possible to injure your football IQ and instincts?

Like Pete posted, 2000 was a really poor year overall. Of course, the Bills didn't help themselves, but they also springboarded that draft to go on and re-draft Erik Flowers type players for years.

Trouble is that not every draft class is identical. It makes sense to draft 2 QBs fairly high in a draft class loaded with QB talent. It makes much less sense to do the same thing in a draft class bereft of QB talent.

The sobering thing is that you might even be correct.

Not surprising given the situation was a melee of around 20 people that had been drinking in and around a dark alley.

Might have had something to do with Modrak's frequent flyer points to Missouri.

Two people getting killed in a street fight is "absolutely hilarious"?

Are you saying that Buddy Nix is the only guy in the NFL that would trade a 7th rounder for Anderson?

There is that. Maybe a 7th rounder from a team happy to have him stand around in street clothes for a year?

He looked like Trent Edwards today.

The QB play wasn't pretty. Nassib was entirely unimpressive and I can't imagine anyone objectively thinking he's a top 10 draft pick off today's game.

Defensive line talent dominated the Senior Bowl. It could be a chance to draft someone and trade Anderson.

I wasn't impressed with the bloated-up Dareus this last season. He put on the weight but lost his quickness and was too often beat at the POA.

It really cannot be debated. Seattle has made more roster moves than the Bills by far. I wouldn't say that the Bills haven't tried at all at the QB position. Nix, while he has been guilty of waiting for the perfect QB, has brought in some QBs. The approach may have been a little odd -- the waving shotgun approach rather than finding guys that had similar skill sets and could run the offense. To some degree, maybe there was overconfidence in Chan's megamind ability to polish turds at the position. On the other hand, the era when a franchise can go 10 or 15 years of trending down and flatlining before making a move are gone like the dinosaurs.

On a side note, Chan's approach to the QB position was clearly one of declaring somebody the uncontested QB and leader of the team. That's an example of in-the-box thinking and the team could have developed more quickly by having the willingness to make decisions and changes at that position. The QB situation was bungled from the very beginning by the Budley pair. <sigh> It is concerning when your 4th year GM is making statements to the effect that it is a revelation to him that his team needs more talent at QB, that QB talent is at such a premium it comes off the draft board quickly, and that you need to find linebackers that can play the pass as well as defend the run. For a bottom-feeder, fans might like to have a sense that the leadership has a better sense of the pulse of the modern game. On the bright side, what I've read about Marrone suggests that he actually is progressive in his approach.