Dawgg

Milloy actually held his own last year, but that's besides the point. Whitner is a great pick and I have no problems that he is on the Bills. Where I do have a problem is that the Bills pigeonholed themselves and were too infatuated with one player, resulting in them taking him WAY too early and overpaying for him. To top it off, they traded back into the first round for a raw project and gave up some valuable mid-round picks in the process. The Patriots traded up in the second round when the top-rated receiver on their board fell. That makes sense. That's why teams trade up. The Bills did it out of desperation. When a team has as many needs as this one does, acquiring picks is the most prudent strategy, NOT giving them up.

This hits the nail on the head and is exactly why this was a botched draft. When you are in rebuilding mode, you simply cannot get too enamored with one player. You need to be flexible and be ready for the unexpected so that you can utilize the draft to improve the OVERALL team as much as possible. This is not what the Bills did. They had no contingency plan. In another post, Stiffler made a great point -- had the Bills traded down to say 15, they could have aquired another 3rd round pick, maybe a 4th as well. Let's hypothetically say that Whitner ends up being taken at 9 after the Bills trade down (which I find HIGHLY unlikely) As pointed out in a previous thread, who would you rather have: a) Whitner OR b) Greenway/Carpenter/Hill + 3rd rounder + (likely) 4th rounder Most definitely, the latter, especially for a team with porous holes in its roster. To say that the front office was focused and stuck to their guns is a copout, IMO. Bottom line, they did not maximize the value of this draft with the idea of improving the team as much as possible. Rather, they were stubborn and pigionholed themselves, missing out on the opportunity to significantly improve the team.

It seems like people are personally insulted when their beloved Bills are questioned. The substance of his post was questioning the overall strategy of the draft.

Most definitely a botched draft by Levy. Trading down was clearly the right move. Partially as a result of the extreme ineptitude in the Bills' front office, teams like the Eagles, who selected AFTER the Bills, came out better on the first day. Just take a look at the top 2 picks: Bunkley and Justice: both can step right in and start for the Eagles in the trenches, where the games are won. Whitner and McCargo: Donte can start but McCargo is a project at best. And the best part? The organization will be paying A LOT more for them than the Eagles are for their picks. Guess that explains why we pick early in the draft

Nice. The guy makes a reasonable argument and you have labeled him an ass.

Excellent post and I couldn't agree more. This team is far removed from the luxury of being able to target one player and claim that he is THE guy. With numerous holes on both sides of the ball, they reached on a safety at #8, missing a golden opportunity for extra picks in a draft that was considered to be quite deep compared to years past.

This is irrelevant to Marv, who has my full support. I am talking about the unnecesasry blame being placed on Jerry Gray after having a top 5 defense for 2 years and having ONE bad season.

Perhaps, but I think that good teams have the luxury to trade up and identify a particular players. Bad teams (and the Bills are a bad team) need to maximize the value of their picks to improve the sum of the parts -- I just didn't feel we had that luxury, no matter how much activity we had in the free agent market. In any case, who knows hopefully it works out.

Forget the injury to Spikes and Edwards. Don't mind not having Sam Adams -- and forget the fact that Donahoe spent ONE draft pick on defense over a 3 year span.

This, I agree with. To give up a second and third to take the 3rd best Defensive Tackle off the board is not smart. Pittsburgh traded up because the #1 receiver on their board was falling to the latter half of the draft, making a trade possible. New England traded up to get Chad Jackson for the exact same reason. Now I'm not a Donahoe supporter by any means, but his approach in the 2001 draft was right on. He inherited a team with plenty of holes and parlayed his draft picks into multiple selections that turned out to be valued additions to the team. IMO that was the approach needed, given the sorry state of the Bills.

This rationalization is the classic ailment of a fan who has suffered through consecutive years ineptitude and lunacy rampant in front office management.

Understood, but you notice the pattern. Take a look at each and every pick, they seem to have a reasonable guess as to where players are going to go and what teams are thinking. In the case of the Bills' picks, it is coming directly out of left field. Perhaps you are right, but to me it seems like a classic case misjudging value.

That's all it takes. This is not rocket sciencee, contrary to what you may believe.

He is right. The picks themselves, while solid and fill needs, do not reflect the value of the positions in which they were taken -- and that is a fact. It is no coincidence that the talking heads on ESPN have a strong handle on teams' draft boards during all the other selections in the first round. They generally can say who it will be among 3 players -- with the Bills, it seems like they are operating on a completely different value system -- which is perfectly legit. But if they are so different, they should take advantage of that and turn that into extra picks.

I have no problems with the picks themselves. What I "do" have a problem with is that the Bills don't seem to be taking advantage of other teams' draft boards. For instance, if most teams had Whitmer as a mid to late first rounder, TRADE DOWN! Secure extra picks. If McCargo is a late second rounder by post team projections, stay put. Perhaps they had intelligence that indicated otherwise, but usually these folks in the media have a solid pulse as to where teams' draft boards are -- and in both cases, these players were reaches where they were drafted.

Winston Justice, here we come

which means the Jets could take Leinart and now I can see a decent chance that Brick falls to 8.

... which is why you trade DOWN and aquire an extra first day pick and an extra second day pick.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nfl/draft06/ins...%26id%3d2422731

Perhaps so, but thrusting him in an interim role when 75% of the season is over is not exactly ideal from a coaching standpoint. Not a fair time period to judge him. Bottom line, we'll know what he's capable of shortly.

If you saw what he had to work with, you would understand. The Lions were a mess. The Bears were also a mess. Do you remember the last good QB he had? Cade McNown? Jim Miller? Shane Matthews? Joey Harrington? Bellechick would have been a perennial loser with the teams Jauron coached.

I diagree here. Tagging Winfield, at the time, would have been an extremely expensive proposition. The average salary for the top 5 cornerbacks in the NFL was something on the order of $8+ Million, meaning the Bills would have to budget that money in the cap and risk not making a trade. If they did that, they would have been hostage to this trade and unable to make any moves to improve their team.

Wonderful post. It's nice to see some common sense from time to time.

Long-term value is debatable here. What has more long-term value: Keeping Clements and using the #8 Pick? -or- trading Clements + pick(s) for a higher pick? The answer is predicated on how successful this higher pick is (suppose it's Brick) and that is NOT a sure bet by any means! What if he's a bust? What if he's a perennial Pro Bowler??? Bottom line is that we don't know. So trading a known commodity who is one-year removed from a Pro Bowl PLUS picks for an unknown commodity is not necessarily a long-term value proposition. Could it be? Maybe. But you simply cannot make that prediction now. Alternatively, you franchise Clements and keep him for the year and you can keep playing this game. If Clements came back with a monster year, then maybe it's worth signign him for the big bucks. If he comes back with another lackluster year, you can send him away... but bottom line, it gives you a year to play with to decide whether that long-term financial committment is worth it or not. And the price you pay to wait a year? You get the services of one of the best young DB's in the league.