Mickey

Yeah, QB's with weak arms, poor mechanics and no experience running a pro style offense are a rare thing indeed. Tebow is a once in life time opportunity to make a complete ass of ourselves while the rest of the league giggles at our stupidity.

Trent Edwards is all of those things too. None of that matters if he doesn't have the skills and I highly doubt Tebow does. There is just no way this team is in a position to take that kind of a gamble. Its not as if we don't have gaping holes all over the roster. I think taking Tebow at 9 would justifiably make us a laughing stock. I don't hate Tebow and I wish him the best but I think he would be an absolute waste of a pick by a team that has made wasting picks a habit.

0-16 won't sell tickets

Thanks for the lecture but if you don't mind, the rest of us will just keep on exercising our free speech as we see fit, whether that be to praise the team or complain about the team.

Amen to that. The goodnews is that our OL has nowhere to go but up!

Ummm...because he doesn't have the tools. If he could have solved his throwing problems before now, he would have. And if his work ethic and attitude are so good, why did he wait until now, at the 11th hour, to address his mechanics? I wish him the best but I have seen his kind come and go, mostly go, in the NFL for decades. Why draft a guy who is a project? Clausen is ready to go now. Bradford too. There are 5 or 6 guys that would be better projects than this guy.

neither I wouldn't take Tebow in the 6th or above.

I don't see it as a high priority and there are always WR's available. The OL and QB are way more important. I always liked Josh but there are tons of guys like him around, he simply is not all that special.

Nice start but they will have to get some OL FA's, we need to have a plan B for the OL in case whoever we draft either busts or needs 2-3 years to figure it out.

He needs to stay out of trouble and be a lot more productive then he has been. I think highly of his abilities but the fact is, he is more likely to be suspended then be in the pro bowl. I don't believe any team in the league would give up more than a 6th round pick for him at this point. He is about as marketable as rancid milk. I'm hoping that this year, he finally gets it and takes football more seriously than he does having a good time.

Probably , are we cursed?

I would have no problem with Bradford. I recall many years ago a college player who had awesome talent, great numbers and great intangibles but because of a serious injury that temporarily derailed him, teams shied away from him in the draft and he dropped all the way into the second round. Thus, we were able to pick Thurman Thomas. That was then and this is now but still, I'm just sayin'. Bradford would have been a very high pick last year and other than the injury, he is basically the same player. If the docs clear him, we'd be lucky to have him. Like any QB in the draft, he is a crapshoot and frankly, I think Clausen is a better pick more on a hunch than anything else. But Bradford has intangibles that are every bit as off the charts as Tebow's plus he reads defenses, plus he has good mechanics, plus he has a stronger arm...etc, etc. The one chance I think we might have for him to drop to 9 is if his workouts don't go well. He isn't going to throw at the combine so unless and until he throws at his pro day or at some other time before the draft to prove his shoulder is good to go, there will be doubts that could easily translate to a draft drop from which we might benefit. What scenario do you see where we would have a shot at Bradford?

Thanks for a great read. As old as the comments from Wilson are, I think it likely he still feels the same way all these years later. In particular, his comment about not drafting Simpson only to trade him for 6 or 7 players forgotten in a year because he has been through the quality vs. quantity thing before is revealing. It is the same reason why the Bills don't seem, as an organization, to be fond of trade downs in the draft. Trade downs, because they seem so logical and so clever, draws supporters among us draft obsessed fans every year. I am not a big fan of the idea but mostly because when you are drafting outside the top 5 or 6 spots, there aren't many teams who are going to want to trade up with you. It just isn't a very likley scenario to bother building a draft strategy around it. On top of that, you simply have to have blue chippers. And yes, every once in awhile you get lucky with an Andre Reed type, a blue chipper drafted relatively late but the odds are still going to be better to find one early rather than late. Once upon a time I listed out all the OL picks we made in the first two or three rounds going back many years and as it turne out, pretty much every longtime starter/blue chipper we have ever had on the line was drafted relatively high. Sure, there were some Mike Williams nightmares in there too but overall, we have found our best people in the early rounds. For good or bad, I don't think Ralph has changed much and I wouldn't be surprised if what he believed in 1969 about quantity vs. quality is what he still believes today.

Yes, the offense was so successful in the preseason that we fired the OC. He wasn't playing tackle because his performance warranted the move. He was there because we had no other option.

Fact is, we need both and we only have one pick in the first round. I like the odds of finding a good OT in the second more than I do trying to find a franchise QB in the second round. So, IF our people think Clausen or Bradford are the real deal and IF we can get them, we shouldn't hesitate to do so. A solid OT in the first would be just fine with me too but if that happens, I think we might have to wait until next year to get a QB.

I would like nothing better than a player that makes all pro and then asks to be paid like an all pro.

Citing one example to disprove a body of statistical evidence is a common tactic hereabouts. Of course the odds of finding a top QB are much better in the first round. The handful of exceptions though are what get noticed such as Ryan Leaf and Joe Montana. Those kinds of stories are more interesting precisely because they are unusual, ie, out of the norm. You and I would put our money on what usually happens, not on unusual, rare outcomes. Others would rather bet on lightning striking twice in the same place. Yes, its all a crap shoot but the odds are better in the first round than anywhere else and in the NFL these days, a good QB is essential to winning. So sooner or later you have to roll the dice and my vote is that we do that where the odds are best, in the first round, even if we have to trade up. Provided of course that our scouts think that Clausen and/or Bradford have the right stuff. If they don't, then we shouldn't take either them in any round.

Sounds a lot like what we already with Trent Edwards. Trade downs rarely happen, especially when you are picking 9th.

Stockpile mediocrity? JP was a late first rounder and Trent was a third rounder. If Clausen is a franchise QB, a big if I'll grant you, I would trade up in a heart beat. You build a team with blue chippers and then fill in the rest.

I don't know about that, seems like JP and McCargo were late first round picks.....

That would all be great but we aren't going to know about Wood until training camp next year. Come draft day, we are going to have to make the best decisions we can based on the information we have, not the info we would like to have. We just missed out on Big Ben and it has set this franchise back 6 years. If Clausen is a franchise QB and we came out of this draft with nothing but that, a quality franchise QB, it would be successful. This rebuilding effort is not going to be done in one offseason. I think quality OL are easier to find than franchise QB's so I think that if we have a chance to get one now (a big "if"), we should take it and not quibble over losing an extra pick or having to pay a high salary.

Because a solid QB is essential, almost no one is winning without one. The drafts we have had over the last 5-6 years were drafts where we stood pat with our first pick and didn't trade up just as you recommend. That didn't work out so well.

Yeah but that notion is really just the old "draft for need" theory. I agree, we have needs, lots of them but I think Clausen is a combo of need and best available. There are certainly plenty of arguments out there that in the first round, you always go best available, never need.

We do have the benefit of hindsight but even so, I have a hard time thinking our people thought JP was close enough to Ben so that it was six of one...etc. Hard to tell, they trade back in the first to get him so maybe they did see him as just as good a prospect as Ben.

That would be sweet. But what about the Rams? Do we know for sure that they are going with Suh?