Ozymandius

The bottom line is that no CB should be taken in the first round. If CB is so unimportant in the Cover-2 that the Bills won't even franchise Clements, then CB is also too unimportant to waste an overall #12 pick on. It would be idiotic to draft a CB in the first round.

By not re-signing Clements, the Bills also make Kelsay expendable as well. Why? Because we no longer need a good rotational player at LDE, we need a dominant passrusher to complement Schobel and take the pressure off our average to bad corners. The Bills should pray that Jamaal Anderson falls to them at 12.

Revis wasn't tested at all playing in the run-happy Big East, making it questionable how good he really is. As a junior, he wasn't eligible to play in the Senior Bowl, either. He's also supposedly not a burner and can't consistently run sub-4.5. The combine may answer that question in his favor, but I wouldn't take him at 12.

Which of last year's non-premier free agents fixed the lines? Marv's track record with non-premier guys isn't good. Of course, it's not a long track record yet, so we shall see... However, the situation of limited funds combined with limited impact free agents available is dubious for fixing the lines.

These days, the way teams wing the ball around through the air, you definitely want a great pass rush given the combinations available. Great pass rush, average runstopping, weak secondary.

The problem is fixing the lines isn't going to happen either. Not unless "cash to cap" was a smokescreen. The number of premier free agents available is dwindling, and somehow I doubt the Bills are going to outbid the big boys for the ones remaining.

Because we've watched him play, we have a distorted opinion? WTF was your method of evaluation -- Madden?

Gurode could've played guard also... and he could've been an option if Fowler struggles or gets injured...

The biggest mistake Marv made was agreeing to not franchise him. Anyway, it's doubtful that the hit to the pass defense is going to be "very slight", and it's questionable whether the Bills can get the defensive linemen they need to get the Tampa-2 to work like other teams. We'll see, but the concerns are very real at this point.

The only thing worse than getting run on at 5 yards a pop is if you stop teams on first and second down but give up the third down completion to move the chain. That's demoralizing. Yes, we need to get better running the ball and stopping the run, but it'd be nice to be able to do so while maintaining strengths in other areas. Why plug one hole at the expense of opening another?

Even if that's true (is it?), it's still an unacceptable risk to the player. What if he gets injured (say, an auto accident or something) between March and September and the Bills cut him? Buh-bye, money.

Question -- what is the penalty for not spending 85% of the cap? If it's a slap on the wrist, then Ralph might just elect to stay at 70% of the cap or so.

Nate won't accept a small bonus. No player would. The bonus is what matters in an NFL contract.

I'll say this, though. The "unfair" excuse is completely made-up bullsh-t by Marv and the Bills. What really happened is that: (1) In the spring of 2006, Marv and the Bills made a decision that the team was two years away from being able to win. A full two years of rebuilding. (2) Ralph determined that he was too cheap to pay Nate what he's worth long-term Because of #1 above, the Bills expected to begin winning in 2008. Because of #2 above, Nate Clements could never be around for 2008 because while we could franchise him again in 2007, we were prohibited by the CBA to do it a third time. Thus, Marv and the Bills made the decision that if Nate wasn't going to be around in 2008 (the projected winning year), they would let him go after 2006 and begin preparing to replace him as early as the draft of 2006 (Youboty). In other words, the Bills thought that they'd be better off in 2008 (the projected winning year) by transitioning on without Nate in 2007 since there was no chance he'd be around in 2008 (due to Ralph's cheapness). Unfortunately for Marv and the Bills , a couple of things happened along the way. (A) Turns out the Bills were ready to win as soon as 2007. Oops. A lot of things went our way this past season, including the players buying into Jauron, Losman's nice development, Peters' easy transition to LT, Evans turning into a star, the d-line becoming the 5th-best in the league at sacking the QB (http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/dl.php ) IN CONJUNCTION with a good secondary (back to that in a sec). The Bills should've been 3-13 in 2006 and 7-9 in 2007. We were a year early instead. Oops. (B) Nate turned out to be the most indispensable player on defense, if not our entire team. Oops. By locking up the opponent's #1 WR, Nate allowed our d-line just enough time to finish off QBs or pressure them into mistakes. Previous to this season, Marv and the Bills regarded Nate as just another good corner that they can replace with the Tampa-2 system as long as they invest mightily in the safeties (Whitner at #8 overall). But, as it turned out, Nate became the team MVP basically. Oops. (C ) Youboty struggled so much that he couldn't get on the field. Oops. Now it's very questionable whether a playmaker at corner in the Tampa-2 is currently even on the roster and signed for 2007. Oops. Soooo, in the spring of 2006, Marv and the Bills basically mis-evaluated how close the team was to winning and how valuable Clements could potentially be to the Bills. Marv then made that no-franchise promise to Nate while looking ahead to 2008. Marv and the Bills f--ked up. Big time. We could sure use Clements for a playoff run in 2007 and we would've had him if not for the promise. Now they stand to lose the team MVP in his prime without any compensation. And instead of 2007 being a season of improvement, going from 3-13 to 7-9 as they expected, the Bills might be looking at treading water at 7-9 again or even regressing. Oops. But, Marv and the Bills can't possibly admit to mis-evaluating the team, mis-evaluating Nate, and !@#$ up so bad. So they're going to use the smelly "unfair" explanation instead... as if anyone is buying that.

To say that Snyder/Jones/Kraft would not have honored the promise is speculative. HOWEVER, it is 100% accurate to say that they never would have made the promise in the first place. We were STUPID beyond belief to make the promise... but what's done is done. Honor that sh-t. Because it's the right thing to do. Because it's not enough to win, you have to be deserving of victory.

This was a big (but not unexpected) loss from a thin free agency scene. He was probably the only DT available with dominant upside.

Well, he was their top priority... so not surprised.

In that first play, he just powers Nick Hardwick to the ground and chases down Drew Brees. In the second play, Sand takes on a double team, holds his ground, sheds, and nails Michael Turner.

Here's footage of Sands against San Diego in 2005: He's a big boy

Yeah, I would reduce Okoye's potential impact from "almost certainly take care of the run defense" to "possibly take care of...". He's a nice player but a bit overrated on this board right now as a runstopper. I'm sure just as many teams project him as a 3-technique knifer as a 1-technique clogger right now. Sands would be a good pickup. A bit risky because he's only really had one good season and who knows how hard he'll work once he gets some money. But he was dominant at times. In that first Monday night game of the year, SD at Oakland, he really gave the SD o-line some fits.

Depends on if the Bills are active in free agency or not. If they aren't, then I kinda agree. BUT, I would prefer the Bills patch several holes in FA, allowing us to stay at 12 and take BPA, which should be a pretty nice player.

Agreed. At the very least, all the fears that he might be gone before 12 strikes me as unfounded. He's a good player but not a freak in terms of size and other measurables. In fact, he's on the small side. He'll be there for our taking if we want him.

No, they must do more than that. They can't repeat last offseason's gameplan. That would be unacceptable.

When are they EVER going to use that "flexibility" if not this season. The Bills went cheap last year, the year before that, the year before that... We have $40 million under the cap. We better spend some money.

He was pretty darn valuable to us this year. The number of coverage sacks that we accumulated had to be more than the average team.