Orton's Arm

The goal here is to win the Super Bowl. Nothing less. This team is easily two years away, and more probably three. So in approaching this draft, the GM should envision the team as it should be 2 - 3 years from now, and take whichever players would be able to make the most elite and important contributions to that future team. Also make whatever coaching or system changes you want to make, and make them now, and plug the holes in as you go. So if you think you'd be better off with a 3-4 defense at some point in the future, switch to it today. Yeah, there will be a few more holes than if you'd stayed with the 4-3. At least in the short-term. But maybe some of those 4-3 players that seemed to plug holes weren't going to be able to help the team much three years from now anyway. Or take the draft. If you have a choice between Mike Williams and Roy Williams, you take Roy, even though Mike's position is a bigger need. The last thing this team should be doing is taking players who can make an immediate impact. You want to focus on positions--such as the offensive line--which generally take at least a year to learn. If the Bills go 4-12 this year, and do the same next year, they'd be in a position to truly benefit from the next two drafts. The 2007 or 2008 drafts would be the time to take DTs and other now players. Of course, if it's a choice between an elite DT and an average OL, you take the DT.

Read the thread title.

I could envision Schobel being an OLB in a 3-4. There isn't exactly a world of talent on this particular defense, so now is the time to switch.

I agree that what TD did while with the Steelers was impressive. I wish his record here was more like that. The best way to judge TD's success in using the draft to build the team is to ask how many draft picks have proven worthy of starting positions. None on the o-line, or at TE. For WR it's Lee Evans and not much else. (Josh Reed was worried about making the final roster, so that shows that he still has a lot to prove.) In the backfield there's McGahee, but we don't know one way or the other about Losman. On offense, that's two proven starters from the draft: Evans and McGahee. On defense, you have some draft picks on the d-line who are starting, but the only one who deserves to is Aaron Schobel. At LB, I'm willing to give TD credit for Angelo Crowell, even though he's technically a backup. In the defensive backfield, you've got Clements and McGee. So that's four proven starters on defense: Schobel, Crowell, Clements, and McGee. Adding in the two on offense, that's just six players in five years. Just six players out of your 22 starters. Not good enough.

You know, I actually agree with this. But even an average talent evaluator is better than TD.

Who's the best coach in the league? If you ask me, it's Bill Belichick. Yet Belichick had a losing record with the Patriots his first year there. Why? He didn't have the horses. You can't win unless you have talent, and I can't believe I actually have to explain this to anyone.

The Cowboys are at 8-6, so Parcells must know something about personnel.

Right but wrong. Let's replace the name "J.P. Losman" with "Joe Montana." Now let's say Parcells knew Montana might fall to him in round 1 of the draft. Then again, someone else might take him first. Would Parcells waste his time with guys named Drew? Depending on how confident he was in his ability to predict what other teams would do, Parcells would either trade up to get Montana for sure, or he'd wait and hope Montana would fall to his pick.

If he thought highly of Losman, he wouldn't have needed to trade for a baseball player like Henson.

Well, he's obviously not going to say, "I think Losman's future in this league is bleak," when he's trying to trade away the pick for the maximum possible value.

The Cowboys signed Bledsoe because they needed a QB. Think about that for a minute. A team that needed a quarterback traded us the Losman pick. If Parcells really thought Losman would develop into a franchise QB, what's he doing trading us that pick?

Parrish may become an important contributer to this team, but he will never become huge.

The very man you're protesting--Tom Donahoe--is the team president, and the guy who's ultimately responsible for setting the rules. Since you don't like the way he's doing the other parts of his job, it's no surprise that you should take issue with this part also. Personally, I'd like to see TD fired myself.

If Josh Reed is so great, why did TD use his first pick in the 2005 draft on Parrish?

I'm not sure why you included Holcomb in your analysis of what's wrong with Eric's production this year. Generally Holcomb looks to Moulds an awful lot. One of the biggest reasons we're not running for more yards is that defenses are putting eight or nine men in the box. Eric Moulds should be getting more yards because of this, not less. The new QB learning the ropes excuse I can buy, and in fairness Evans' numbers are down too. I also agree the offensive line is terrible, but it was also bad in 2003 when Bobby Shaw put up about 800 yards as the go-to receiver. He was released the next season.

JP has thrown a few good passes, but he lacks, um, I hate using this word, consistency. In that way, he reminds me of a slower Michael Vick. The problem with Vick is that he's usually not going to beat you by just standing in the pocket. Maybe next year Losman will do a better job of being consistently accurate. Because without that consistency, the only way you're going to score is on a deep bomb to Evans. While I have nothing against deep bombs to Evans, you also need to be able to move the ball down the field with a million small cuts, the way Brady does with the Patriots.

Eric had a good game on Saturday, but his numbers for the year aren't what you'd expect from your go-to receiver. He'll be a year older and slower next season. This is a rebuilding team that doesn't need a declining WR.

Let's say there's a publicly owned apartment building, and you happen to be renting one of the apartments. You can throw pretty much anyone at all out of the place you're renting, no matter how bad your reason for doing so may be. If you wanted, you could use this right to impose all kinds of restrictions on the speech of those who want to visit your apartment. The same is true when it's a private entity--such as the Bills--leasing a publicly owned stadium.

Ah, so when Holcomb throws a pass to a WR that has little to no chance of making something happen after the catch, you blame him for a poor decision. But when other Holcomb passes DO result in YAC, you give all the credit to the receiver.

With Evans' early drops, he deserved to be ignored.

Yessssss!!! Bring back Gregggg and his teachers!!! Dump Bobby April on his rear end and bring back, um, whoever it was that was supposed to have been our special teams coach. Get rid of Jim McNally and return us to the good old days of Ronnie Vinlarek. Above all, bring back Kevin Gilbride!!!

If we get a top-five pick, chances are TD is gone. Losing kills two birds with one stone. The last thing we need is a repeat of last year's flash in the pan late season run.

Looking at the offensive and defensive lines, the only player who deserves to be a starter is Aaron Schoebel. As far as building the team from the trenches goes, this is basically an expansion franchise. Looking at offensive skill positions, I'm concerned about McGahee's lack of motivation, Losman's lack of accuracy, Moulds' lack of youth, and Parrish's lack of size. Also, if you're going to use a second round pick on a player that small, you'd expect more explosiveness than what Parrish has shown. As far as proven offensive skill positions go, you're basically looking at Evans and McGahee. On defense, Nate Clements has been having a bad year, and McGee played poorly today also. There's really nobody at safety, so you're looking at a very questionable starting secondary. Takeo Spikes and London Fletcher are good linebackers, but they're not getting any younger. The only proven long-term talent at LB is Angelo Crowell. To summarize, this team's young but proven players are: Aaron Schoebel, Lee Evans, Willis McGahee, Terrence McGee, and Angelo Crowell. That's not much of a core to build around. Even in the unlikely event Losman turns out to be an above-average QB, you're still looking at a major rebuilding project.

Thanks for the entertaining post, and I agree with your conclusion. I haven't been paying much attention to defensive coordinator availability, but I'd be happy with a Dave McGinnis, a Ted Cottrell, or some other man who actually knows what he's doing.

Milloy can't cover anyone, so you may as well send him on the blitz. At very least he may, possibly, distract the QB a little.