Scraps

I'm skeptical that Whitner is a star in the Roy William or Sean Taylor category. If he was, he would have been projected to go much higher than where most prognoscticators put him. Did you think that Clements and Travis Henry were bad picks for the Bills? That's what they got for trading down.

The article I was reading was wrong. It is still a good example of filling more than 1 need and getting good value instead of tunnel vision.

Sometimes it works out that the best palyer available where you draft fills a need. In those cases, you essentially get the daily double. That was the case with Brown and Winfield. Odd that you bring up Clements since TD traded down 9 slots to get him. Had Levy done the same thing with Whitner, there wouldn't be nearly the number of complaints about this years draft.

I don't recall people saying Brown, Winfield or Clements were reaches when they were drafted. Didn't they pretty much go about where they were supposed to go in those drafts?

Do you have any statistics to back up your claims of 50% of all #3 picks being busts? It's been some years since I've seen it but at one time someone posted an analysis that showed the higher someone was picked, the more likely it was that they would be all Pros. I am not likely to buy into the concept of drafting for need because such drafts have landed us the likes of Taveres Tillman, Eric Flowers and Mike Williams. This team had holes and needs just about everywhere except punter. It could have drafted the best player available and it still likely would have filled a need.

What dates are you talking about? Seems to me that if you sign anyone this year you have to fit them under this years cap.

Dude, how do you come up with this math? Only one of these guys can play at any given time. If none of them has a likely chance of success, why do you think any of them will be adequate?

Nah. The only thing mandatory for New Orleans is chocolate.

Pension or 401K? They had a wide array of choices for their 401K plans. Those who lost their life savings chose poorly.

I'm a bit skeptical that he will do that but I would be thrilled those numbers and those aren't pie in the sky expectations that some profess.

In other words, you agree with everyone your arguing with.

I see plenty of reason to be skeptiocal, not anything but hopeful, that Price will catch 70-80 balls this season. Pyrite is fools gold and one must be foolish to believe the confluence of events you listed will all come to fruition. Weather or not Price is labeled a 1st, 2nd or 3rd receiver is not particularly relevant. Price had a career season in 2002 in large part because he had a receiver who had proven he could draw double teams. I like Evans but he has not proven himself in this regard. In Peerless Price's one good season he had a proven deep ball QB who was pass oriented first last and always. He was never able to regain that form even when paired up with that same QB last year. With this years Bills he does not have a proven QB. Losman might be able to perform at that level, at least he has the arm, but he is not pass oriented like Bledsoe was and has some accuracy issues. Holcomb does not have the arm to go deep. I don't know about Nall but just not knowing enough about him other than he wasn't sought by his old team has me skeptical that he will approach a Bledsoe circa 2002 performance. Home town distractions? Desperate grasping at straws. He didn't have those distractions last year but usually wasn't even active for games. In a game where performance drops quickly with age and an average careers is 4 years or less, I think his dropping performance over the last 3 years is far more relevant than his rising performance in his first 3 years. That is especially true if you expect him to perform at a level he has achieved only once in his entire career.

Do you realize that he has not caught 70 passes in any year since he left Buffalo and has regressed stat wise every year since 2002?

Going right to the middle of the line, I would suggest that one of the reasons those Bills defenses were not dominant was because of Jeff Wright. I like the guy but he was small for a nose tackle. There is a reason why the Bills defense improved tremendously when Ted Washington was acquired. It pains me to see Marv repeating this mistake.

Yes, but my comment was in response to apuszczalowski.

Okay, but 150% of 0 is still 0.

I tend to believe a team that lacks talent, got weaker personnel wise in the off season and hired a retread coach with a losing record will be much closer to 0-16 than 16-0.

What difference will that make when the best running back in the NFL is running all over our puny defensive line?

Why is it that fans who don't believe the Bills have improved in the off season and may have actually regressed are "hoping the team will lose"? Maybe we believe that the team that wnt 5-11 last year and may actually be weaker should be worse than 5-11 this year. I am not impressed with anything the Bills have done this off season. They hired a GM who has scant history to suggest he would be a good GM but was a good ol boy. They hired a retread coach who seems to be a slave to a the cover 2 system, never mind that this system plays to the weaknesses and avoids the strengths of the defensive personel the Bills have. In free agency, they may have improved their offensive line (its hard to imagine the line being any worse) but they didn't really sign anyone of note. Meanwhile, they seriously weakened their receiving corps and weakened the defensive line. I don't think a draft is going to turn a team around in one year but I thought Whitner was a bit of a reach in the draft and if a trade was offered to move down a little, that should have been done. Its not that I am hoping the Bills will lose but last year, they stunk. I just don't see what this team has done to improve itself markedly.

Are you sure about that? The Bills would have had a 4-12 record but that would have tied them with the Titans, Jets, Packers and 49ers, all of whom had worse division or conference records than the Bills. The Bills would have moved up one spot and had a chance at Huff. Ferguson would have been long gone.

The Buffalo Sabres certainly had chemistry. Nobody is saying you will win without it. However the Sabres benefitted from some rules changes and acquired talent that could take advantage of the pace and style encouraged by those new rules. The NFL hasn't made substansive changes to the game since last season, have they?

I thought you would have added Billy Joe Hobert.

Yes However it is one thing to trade an established player and another to trade a rookie.

If Losman or Nall can't beat out Holcomb, doesn't that tell you that they don't have what it takes to ba a solid NFL starting QB?

Losing that game would not have put the Bills in position to draft Ferguson.