Pyrite Gal

Unfortunately it seems to be the way of the world. Part of the analysis on one of the 24 hour news networks of todays triggering of various terror alerts in Boston which shut down parts of that city which was caused by a marketing campaign for some cartoon network show was the question of whether any particular cost to Turner for this travesty was worth in terms of the amount of advertising which the show got in news stories (I know the name of the show but erased it after mentioning it in this post as my complaining about would simply become more advertising for them. If these kinds of calculations are being made for efforts which seriously waste the time of bomb squads and other public servants then the billboarding of sports is a pretty done deal.

I'm not against starting rookies at all. What I am for is having the team perform better amd I think the Bills will emphasize performing better and making a serious playoff run in 07 bigtime. I think that this is going to be a definite commitment for Ralph and Marv given the long drought in playoff appearances and also the fact that their is no gurantee for the Golden Boys to be running this team forever. The key here it would seem to me is an idea that most seem to agree on that the MLB plays a crucial role in the Tampa 2 and that in particular a good MLB performance is going to be based in large part on the ability of the MLB to make good play reads and not be fooled much by OCs and opposing QBs. I simply do not see a rookie making reads like an NFL vet. Like it or not Willis is a great athlete but a rookie is not gonna be a vet. If I am Tom Brady or any competent NFL QN, I am salivating over the opportunity to go up against a rookie MLB in the tampa 2. I just do not see Marv and Ralph being willing to subject their team to going through the growing pains of Willis simply learning to become a vet through making natural mistakes any rookie MLB will make.

This was not something I saw in his play. I think his play was OK at best and coupled with poor usage by Fairchild explains the disappointing results to me.

Certainly would be good players to get. The choice of Meacham at WR does raise the question though whether our O would in fact be more productive if Fairchild used a scheme which put the player talent we have to better use rather than simply getting theoretically better players who Fairchild does not use well. Price's incredibly low YPC struck me as more a product of him being usedas a possession WR sent on short sideline routes rather than his use for us in 2002 which made greater use of his downfield speed. I can see simply blaming PP's performance for the simply adequate at best $ of catches for a #2 and his low YPC, a great receiver simply demands that you use him properly by him making bigger plays out of whatever you give him by producing good RAC. However, PP never showed a case of the droppsies (similar to the rep Reed deservedly built in his horrendous sophomore year. There certainly were a number of particular plays where he showed great footwork and control such as win he got a TD in the waning seconds of the Houston game. Outside observers such as Allen Wilson with the Buffalo News and him taking down a long pass going away in pre-season show he still has some breakaway ability. Yet, from the routes Fairchild had him run to the failure of the the O to establish a passing game to the RB (as demonstrated in the first play of the Ravens game which was called back by an seemingly unrelated to the play motion penalty made a nice pick-up on the pass play and we never went back to the RB pass again, we might pick-up Meacham only to be disappointed with his results if Fairchild cannot run an O that dictates play and used what is a considerable bit of speed our WRs have.

I hope you are right if we end up opting for Willis. However, I think obie wan made the key point in that the MLB play is critical to the functioning of the Tampa 2 as the MLB divides the deep zone coverage of the field into 3 with the safeties. This mandates that our MLB have the physical ability to both tackle at the LOS like a DT (Willis seems to be well qualified to do this from what I see) but also play deep cover over the middle like a safety (Willis also seems to have the speed and the coverage ability to do this well one on one though no one has presented any indication such as word his college was HC'ed or DC'ed by a former pro and that they played a bunch of zone that would be that the assertion he can be a Tampa 2 MLB is more than simple hopeful thinking). I think there are several relevant points here in terms of the chances of us choosing Willis and then how it will work out if we do: 1. In the absence of any presentation of objective information or some indication that Willis more than a very physically talented player the thought we would pick him seems to be based more on wishful thinking than any objective analysis or thinking. Having more than fact-free opinions is not required on TSW but it is nice to be educated by these posts. 2. I agree that players simply need to develop and no one should expect a rookie to produce like a vet such that one never drafts a rookie. However, there is a difference between drafting a talented rookie and hoping/expecting/requiring him to start immediately at a demanding position like SS and an even more demanding position like MLB in a Tampa 2. I could easily see the Bills being quite happy getting a player of the skill level of a Willis. However, I do not see them having a lot of our D scheme depend on this rookie performing like a vet in the critical position. 3. I do not see the Golden Boys Marv and Ralph being willing to commit to undergoing the ups and downs of a critical player on the D (and I would say THE most critical player) going through a learning curve of undefined length which which may well mortgage the whole season even if he turns out to play forever at MLB for the Los Angeles Bills. 4. The only suggestion which seems rational for the Bills replacing an F-B who walks would be to shift Crowell to MLB which means you more likely replace him by trying to sign a Briggs or the next FA down from him if we cannot pry this FA away from the Bears or if one wants to draft a replacement you go with OLBs Timmons or Poluszny rather than Willis. Some folks have said I repeat the same thing and this is true because I almost always am responding to same dramatic declaration that we should pick Willis and start him at MLB and none of these folks have presented much in terms of their wishes and dreams and few objective indicators of how long they think his learning curve will be how, how many games they think we may lose while he learns and why old fogies like Marv and Ralph would be willing to risk 07 results for possible future gains. In addition, though the thought of taking Willis is rooted in the likelihood we are gonna have to replace FA Fletcher, it also has been rooted in a presentation that he tackles player too deep in our backfield. Maybe this is true, but folks should realize that this is happening because our DTs allow too many runners to get to the second level where the LBs are playing unless they are shotting the gap. Also, on plays where the LB does have run stopping duty, F-B hitting people in the backfield is at least in part due to how the DC is lining him up to play as he also has coverage duties. They might argue that the problem is not where he is told to line-up but that he is not fast enough to plug the hole or too weak or "light in the pants" to tackle charging RBs. However, the stats do not seem to indicate this at all as F-B has been credited with a Bills leading number of tackles year and year out and that his tackles run 2:1 solo versus alone which does not indicate that he merely grabs on to folks ankles and because he is so weak or below weight he needs help bringing players down. I hate to rain on folks parade and i hope I am wrong but if we draft Willis as our starting MLB then the likelihood is wait for the 2008 season before we win tons of games and do well.

Exactly in the assumption that MLB is critical in the Cover 2 which is why picking a rookie to man this spot as a starter likely condemns us to a painful first year. I am not saying that one should not pick a talented rookie as this is how gets and develops players who can man a spot for years. What I am saying is that folks should be prepared for and acknowledge the likely painful process which would occur if we depended upon even a very talented rookie to be the starter in this critical role. F-B used his near decade of experience as the MLB in the cover two to read plays and make the diverse decisions called for which make this position critical as the MLB must decide whether this down and distance and the O lineup requires that he play like a run stuffing DT or play like a deep cover safety on a particular play. I simply do not see why folks would have any expectation that a rookie is going to be able to read NFL plays like a 10 year vet because even if Willis is a better tackler (which he seems to be right now) than Fletch and a better pass coverage guy (it would not surprise me if he is one on one but no one has presented any objective facts that he is with zone coverage even if he correctly reads it being a pass play) there still is likely to be a painful learning curve for even a talented rookie to become a vet. If I am Tom Brady or even a marginally competemt NFL QB and OCs I am downright salivating at the chance to face a rookie MLB (even a talented one as Willis appears to be) because I am certain that I an adequate pro team is going to be able to show a rookie things he has not seen before on the field and a combination of speed and athleticism he has not ever faced before so that if I can even get him to lean in a little bit or take one wrong step in, I am going to send a speedy WR om a post pattern up the middle and take advantage of any rookie mistakes the MLB has for deep zone responsibility up the middle. There almost certainly will be some very bad times as this talented rookie learns how to become a vet and lmy sense is that I doubt we commit to having a physically talented athlete on D play the same critical role JP did on O and essentially turn 2007 into yet another development season.

I think this would be quite painful to live with next year. I can see why Hargrove is a popular player because he shows good attitude and commitment, but his play has struck me as adequate DE at best but a great cheerleader. His production would be great if he was a Buffalo Jill but his sack and a half and single digit # of tackles in 14 games for us gives me little confidence in him as a starter if it came to that. Also, I can see why folks are high on Willis because of his great LB skills which won him the Butkus award as college's best LB, but particularly in the Tampa 2 version of the Cover 2 we use, the MLB is benefitted alot by having a veteran ability to make reads so that he can make good choices on whether he needs to play like a productive tackler of a deep zone safety on a particular play. Anyway you cut it a rookies is not going to be a vet for a year or so. I am not saying you do not draft rookies, but I am saying that if you choose to give your physically gifted rookie or young player PT by being a starter, simply be prepared for some painful learning while the younger learns from making mistakes as he becomes a vet (something we just saw with JP learning to become a quality QB). Like JP and his experience, if Willis is made the starting MLB particularly in a Tampa 2 scheme which calls on the MLB to read a Tom Brady to determine whether he best plays like a DT or like an SS, the D will take a step backward in productivity with Willis starting at MLB than we even saw with Fletcher at MLB. Willis is a better tackler right now. He may even be a better one-on-one cover guy than Fletcher right now (though with F-B leading all NFL LBs in INT and leading the Bills in this regard there are no indications that this is true even though the indications are Willis is more physically gifted than Fletch in terms of speed. If the Bills call Willis's name with the #12 pick (or a trade down may quite possible as some pundits have him ranked in the 20s among all draftees and some even have Timmons or Polusazny ranked higher than Willis among LBs) I will be happy in that he may give us a starting MLB for years, but 2007 is likely to be quite painful with him starting at MLB. Maybe he has the chops to move to OLB and Crowell steps up to MLB which is likely to produce far better results assuming Willis could be productive at OLB.

Sounds like us, and this may be a problem quite soon.

Agreed (for now, but still a significant chunk of time and info too early to tell with various showcase games to be played- I think and hope- and at any rate the Combine and basic medical exams and the all important interview for the character focused Bills to go).

Thanks also for the post, the interesting thing will be to apply it to the Bills D which will be somewhat challenging to do as the description does describe fairly perfect players at each position and no team (the Bears seemed to be close prior to injury knocking some great players out and slowing down others) has players who meet the criteria of perfection described. The analytical questions are for the players we have which do not meet this standard, should we use the draft resources and the FA resources we have to get players. My specific observations are: 1. A great description of what the CBs are expected to do which if you buy this as what we are doing debunks the IMHO false statement seen a couple of time recently that we use a "soft" coverage scheme with our CBs which has them playing too far off the line. This is certainly what we used to do as the CBs needed to play back in the zone-blitz scheme since if the OC or opposing QB avoided our blitz, the CB had to make sure the WR did not get past him or there was no stopping them. This description of what we want makes me even more excited about Youbouty as with his large size for a CB, rep for feisty competitiveness and good skills for hand-battles pm the 5 yard riding zone. he really is set up to play CB in a Cover 2. One major area of work described for him is that he actually has had problems running with his back to the QB downfield and if his responsibility is simply in the short to early in the midzone area, our scheme plays to his skills. I'm pretty sure he can play nickel for us right now and perhaps if forced to be our #2 CB maybe he could step up and do that as well. 2. Willis is definitely a great player overall, but i do wonder how any rookie will do as the starting MLB in the Tampa 2, The description correctly identifies that the MLB in our scheme will be called upon to play diverse rolls as both a run plugger and a serious deep cover guy. Willis is certainly an excellent tackler (he should be a harder hitter than F-B even right now. Also as the Butkus Award winner as college football's best LB he seems to have great one on one pass coverage skills. However, no one has answered the specific questions: A. He definitely can cover one on one but how is he at zone coverage and did he play this alot in college or did he essentially just line up and because he was better than most opponents he just beat them? B. The article does not actually I think give enough attention to how smart a player and great play reader our MLB will have to be. This player will be expected to correctly diagnose NFL playa right off the bat as being a pass play where his job is deep cover and he must drop back almost immediately if some speedy receiver is coming into the deep middle zone running a post pattern. On the other hand if it is a draw play (particularly a delayed draw) he needs to pinch up an plug the run. Him making a mistake of even just leaning the wrong way on a play and then having to reverse field easily can cost us a first down or a quick 6. Pretty much no rookie will read like a vet and it will be simply a little painful watching him as he learns the game. C. Also if we draft the rookie Willis just forget about him calling plays for the team as D capt. F-B did for us. Traditionally, not all MLBs call plays but if not the first calls almost by default is that one of two safeties makes the calls as they are back so they see the whole field and in the center of the field where they not only can see all fairly well, but also both sides can hear them easily (no small thing in a noisy stadium). Yet, both safeties are rookies and again I have not heard anyone make the claim they have mastered the Jauron/Fewell D. Assuming F-B goes (not a done deal yet actually but that is the assumption of likely outcomes) then either TKO or Cowell would seem to have the experience to take on the play calling. Thus my sense is that one best replaces Fletch not with a draft of Willis who will likely spend his first year doing the defensive equivalent of the young JP (a talented and athletic player who simply has to learn (and often learning by making mistakes) to be a vet and make reads and play like one. I think we are a better team drafting a lesser LB like Timmons or Polusany and having these rookies play the important but less mentally challenging OLB spots and shift Crowell back to MLB where he initially was trained. 3. The DL situation looks even more critical judging from this description and as noted, since the Bills do not have that rare run plugger to play nose tackle in this scheme. we likely need to go with two DTs with good penetration ability who command a double team because they can blow up plays. I still think it is far too early to give up on McCargo. Remember that Ryan Denney even though he was an older player with the theoretical advantage of being older and thus not only having gained additional knowledge but a very teachable person was so bad he could not even be active most of his rookie season. Yet, with training his game improved such that he was judged good enough for the Bills to extend his contract. They are different people and the analogy is just an analogy, but they are similar in that the Bills traded up to get both of them and though the McCargo exercise still may not work out it is simply too early to assume he will not eventually get it together. Still, with Anderson probably saying bye bye, if the braintrust thinks Okoye can work out I would not fill bad about going with him. This still shortchanges the O again with a D focus in the draft, but I think that if the OL continues the progression i showed after being retooled during the break, there are possibilities.

I think the concept of trading McGahee makes far more sense to fans who are pissed at him (I am disappointed in his performance but since I really care very little about his stupid attitude toward women and fatherhood or his views on team location, I really care very little about this off the field stuff. If I had any sense it was impacting what his teammates think or team chemistry that is another issue but I have no evidence of that) than it does to the Bills in charge. Trading him with the idea of a draft pick replacing him seems doubly bad to me as we would be giving up a guy with less production than we wanted last year, but getting rid of a guy who has proven he can gain about 1000 yards or more on the ground for a guy who has not proven anything. This risk is one thing for a fan but something else when your paycheck and team productivity depends on this. In addition, the idea of wanting to trade him because you think he sucks and then getting something of value for a player who sucks seems contradictory. The Bills are in the drivers' seat with him contractually. For those who judge him as lacking motivation he should have every fiscal reason to produce prior to FA. After a season judged between bad and disappointing he has zero leverage for a holdout which was hurt him a ton financially if he trued. In addition, he has Rosenhaus who in addition to being an idiot also has a record of his clients not actually holding out. If he plays great next year fine as you can decide to show him the money of you wish or simply tag him and redo the motivation year or tag and trade him if you hate him. Getting rid of them this year, particularly for a draft choice seems like a bad football move, The logical move would seem to be to get a second day draft pick at RN whom you believe MIGHT be able to become your RB of the future, more likely can contribute this year as a replacement for Shaud abd ut is to be hoped provides some competition which joins with the financial need for WM to produce to motivate him. In general. stay the course sucks as an Iraq strategy. but it looks like a good foorball strategy at RB for us.

This is not what I saw on lots of different plays. Its hard to say for sure as if there is simply one way you always run your coverage, even an idiot opponent figures this out and simply figures out a way to exploit it. Though i think it is accurate to describe the Bills coverage style generally as being more loose or more press coverage, there are always particular plays where they in fact might fake using their normal style and then go the other way so as not to be predictable. However, with that caveat being said, I think one can more accurately describe the coverage used by the Bills CBs as a press coverage. I can see how one might be fooled into labeling it as soft due to a couple of wrinkles, namely it is basically a zone coverage with a player initially assigned a section of field, but in terms of actual work, the CB is required to read the play and choose a receiver he judges to be coming into his area and then to launch press coverage on that receiver. I could see how an observer might be fooled into thinking its a soft coverage as the CB might not line up right in the face of a particular receiver if the down and distance is such that he is willing to give the receiver a couple of yard for a quick pass, but given that he would be on the receiver quickly as he presses this is not a problem to give up a short pass on a second and long as I am immediately headed in for the tackle on this quick opener. An observer almost may be fooled into thinking it is soft coverage if the CB has not gotten right into the face of a receiver because he judges that either of two receivers may enter his zone, In this case he waits for their first step or max two and then attacks with the press the receiver he feels is more likely coming his way. However, in general I think you can most accurately describe our CV use as a press coverage. A number of stats indicate this is true actually: 1. The leading INT guy on our team was an LB Fletcher rather than the typical CB leaders. I think this was true because in our D the way we used it it actually is best described as the version of the Cover 2 known as the Tampa 2 where the MLB plays deep zone coverage more similar to what a safety normally plays while the CB plays a press coverage on the WRs and actually releases them to the safeties who have the outside deep zones when the WR goes 10 or more yards down the field. The zone actually produces more INTs than the press coverage as when you press well the QB decides to not even throw it to that receiver because he is tightly covered. When you zone up you are more free to read the QBs eyes and when you are good at this jump the route and also you are freer to get tipped or misthrown balls. When you press a lot as I felt our CBs did in short coverage, there are fewer misthrown balls to pick because the passes are short, it is harder to pick off balls as they are thrown with speed and pace unlike the lofts sent deep, and also you are usually locked in a hand fight with a WR and there are fewer INTs. The fact that F-B got more INTs than either corner I think is a good indicator of short press coverage by the CBa (again stats are rarely a conclusive demonstrator but they are often good indicators). 2. A second indicator is the problems our pass coverage had as we approached the middle of the season. McGee even got benched to force him to get a handle on problems that led to long bombs to WRs like MN Robinson of a fly and a Chad Jackson TD which was blamed on McGee but I think Simpson getting there late was the bigger problem. The coverage problems were actually simply McGee getting beat deep by a series of receivers even though he was playing the soft coverage you describe when actually he was getting beat deep wwhen he let the receiver go and did not realize that the rookie safety was not there in the deep zone. He was beaten head to head by better WRs like Detroit\s Roy Williams, but actually if he was playing as soft as you say and was repetitively 5 yards off the receiver he would not be getting left in the dust for receptions but instead would have to give up TDs by failing to make tackles after the reception. 3. Another potentially good indicator is examining the strengths and weaknesses of the players they picked and in particular look at what Youbouty brings to the game. In fact with his body and a rep for being competitive and a good hand fighter he was built and trained for press coverage. In fact, one of the big complaints about his game is that when he has to run deep hip to hip with a WR though he has OK speed he has trouble with his back to the ball. Youbouty is a press guy. At any rate, I think historically you are correct that the Bills have generally been a soft coverage team with bend do not break Walt Corey in charge and the emphasis on the zone blitz with LeBeau then Grau. However, I think you are incorrect to say that the Bills generally run a soft coverage with our Cover 2 for the CBs like Clements because a key to the CB game now in our D is to be good at press coverage.

Dick Jauron has almost certainly forgotten more than a neophyte fan such as myself knows about the Cover 2, but my sense of McGees non-productive play at early points in the season which led to his benching were not based on him being beaten by the WR physically (or even mentally head up) but actually on him failing to see how badly our rookie safeties were playing and not being with it enough to try to stick with a WR who actually is no longer his prime responsibility in the Cover 2 as his assignment was designed to be press coverage into the mid zone and then turn him over to the safety who had the deep coverage. I think what McGee failed to do which led to Fewell/Jauron benching him to refocus his thinking was not see that Whitner/Simpson were failing as many rookies do, to accomplish their jobs and that McGee as a vet should have seen this and left the short zone open for exploitation while he went deep with the WR because the rookie safety blew the deep coverage. My sense is that this message was received by McGee as these problems did not occur again after his mid-season benching. However, it interests me that some folks seem to judge errors as primarily a fault on McGee's part when actually I think McGee's error was that he did not react well to a complete screw up the rookie safety. The bottomline is for this issue though is that actually I do not think that it is going be an essential move to make to reduce McGee's duties to see him/us improve in coverage as I think that McGee has demonstrated he got the message that he needs to be a vet in his CB play and also I suspect that Whitner/Simpson will not only not make rookie mistakes in the future but as they become vets they will be able to pick up for McGee (and possibly NC) in future play.

Great to see this and hear from you and thanks.

I think there is little beyond coincidence to explain any uptick in conjunction with Zierlein's arrival. Perhaps if there was something specific one could point to which explains this improvement which could be linked to Zierlein's arrival one can credibly give him credit, but outside of the co-inciding of timing I have not hear any real evidence that would point to this. If JMac had been a complete failure here then perhaps one might latch onto the Zierlein idea. but you actually give JMac to little credit for good things which happened under him such as: 1. Changing Peters to OL from a TE seemed to be all his idea and he has both managed Peters progression and been a vocal advocate for him. Turning this UDFA TE into someone folks talk about seriously as a potential Pro Bowl deserving LT was simply outstanding work. 2. Right from the start he has made it clear he is no miracle worker and expect sow's ears to become silk purses. However, he has made some really bad ineffective players into adequate players a number of times, He managed Mike Williams back from being a fat bust to briefly being adequate with good carrots (a game ball after he held a sackmaster opponent sackless and sticks like threatening to shift him to guard unless he lost weight as he did after being threatened) and then was instrumental in showing him the door when he did not follow his brief recovery with continued good play; He showed Pacillo and some old Vinky picked bad players the door and actually turned Ravens PS guy Smith into an almost adequate starting G; when Smith proved inadequate in specific parts of the game like work in the redzone he recruited and trained D players like Bannan into being effective redzone players. 3. There have beeb mistakes on his watch like Bennie Anderson and Reyes but to some degree these seem to be caused by him aggressively trying to deal with a situation which has been poorly managed and underesourced for as much as a decade so having some misses with the hits is not unexpected or unforgivable IMHO, JMac is refreshing in that he has not been afraid to work with bad players and give them a second chance when they respond, but also he has not been afraid to jettison them and move on when they play so poorly they would need a 3rd chance to succeed.

My guess is that he would be a probably very good to possibly great KR guy, However, if he were given this role it would mean taking it from McGee who is a definite very good to quite often great return guy. While some folks even go as far as badmouthing McGee this simply seems to be the case of hold him to a standard of his really great year returning kicks when he has simply fallen back to being very good. Their disappointment in McGee says more about these fans having expectations which are rarely achieved and being willing to throw a very good KR guy under the bus for not being phenomenal. Giving Parrish the role almost certainly would result to little or no upgrade in KR performance at the risk of getting less out of two players and makes little football sense I can see.

I start this off as a new thread because though this question was inspired by another thread assessing our specific 06 draft, I feel like some feedback on this more general question would help get me and all of us grounded as we approach the next draft. How do folks make their assessment of a draft? For me, it really is all about W/L results for the team. Of course though I am a "the future is now" kind of fan, my desire to see my team win right here, right now is somewhat moderated by recognizing we must also prepare for the future. The key measure to me is whether a draft class contributes to a team producing a better W/L. This actually can be seen in objective data as whether members of a draft class get significant playing time (PT) on a team which improves its W/L. PT can be objectively seen in stats such as game starts and W/L can obviously be seen. Further, one should also take into account the relative quality of opponents and judge whether this W/L was produced against tougher or easier competition than than previous teams. It seems fairly straight-forward to me. There are a a lot of ways this can be done and this can provide interesting fodder for posts. However, much of this fodder is fairly ignorable (for example some have made a big point about the statistically demonstrable point that SS's are rarely taken with top 10 picks- true but who cares as though this was true in past drafts, in last years draft OAK took one of the 2 safeties worth taking in the first round with pick 7 an the team with pick 9 had a need for an SS so us taking our SS with pick 8 was not only reasonable but actually mandated by our needs and player rankings, the statistical occurences of the past are mere interesting trivia for those who choose to live in the present) and the other fodder of timing of picks are completely outweighed by assessing the total draft. Looking back to the 06 Bills draft as an example of this point, I think assessing it to this point (and the over-arching key is that no real or full conclusion can be drawn for about three years as the first couple of years results can actually be quite different than how a player's career ultimately turns out) is also fairly straight-forward. The baseline is that a team starts with 7 picks and depending upon various moves and league decisions this may go up or go down but for the 06 class the results for the Bills after a single season of play were: 1. The W/L improved from 5-11 to 7-9. While not earth-shattering as we did not make the playoffs this was a significant improvement for the team mostly reflecting moving beyond the discord of life under TD and this change was reflected in the draft among other things. This is a key piece of background info for the objective data below as it makes little positive difference if the 06 draft class contributed to a team going backwards in results. 2. I have not compared the results achieved by our 05 opponents with the results achieved by our 06 opponents so others can do a full comparison, but I feel no need to do this as it is clear our 06 opponents achieved good results so I am even more impressed by the improvement in W/L achieved by the 06 team. We improved our record by two wins while playing half of our games against teams which made the playoffs who had an 06 where they produced the top 5 seeds in the AFC (SD, BAL, IN, NE, and NYJ) and the top seeded Bears from the NFC. In retrospect, losing to the non-playoff teams TN at home and DET on the road did this team in as they also failed to win games they had the lead in like NE on the road and the timing of the split with NYJ also had impacts. Still we improved but it simply was not that our opponents were stiffs. 3. Turning 7 rounds into 9 players was a positive for this team though ultimately the assessment is based not on this issue of opportunity but in the final results achieved. They had 10 and traded one in to move up which turned out to be a bust move so far in terms of product but we will see how it works out. In any case this issue is a sidelight which deserves note but not the focus of assessing the real results. 4. Of the 9 players chosen all made the roster. It is not unheard of and not even unusual for at least one player to be cut and brought back on the PS or even cut outright, the fact all 9 made the roster and ultimately the team improved is a sign of good basic work. 5. Of even greater note, 7 of the 9 players chosen actually saw significant PT in getting at least one game start. I even feel OK about the two who did not get starts as though McCargo was a disappointment for a 1st round choice the team traded away resources to get, he at least got some PT before he got IR'ed and some judge his showing in his final game to be some sign (I hope so but will believe it when I see it) he is turning things around. Butler did not play well enough to get a GS, but I am happy he got some PT so JMac can better assess him. The 7 players with game starts I feel very good about. 6. 2 of these players are on a track to be starters for a while (Whitner and Simpson). The jury is still out on Pennington but his play and potential allows us to use our limited resources to upgrade at G and rely on Pennington, development of Butler and low-resource acquired long shots at RT. 1 position may well have been filled from this draft as 5th rounder Williams not only started a vast majority of the games at RDT, but is the clear starter on the current roster. Our run D had enough trouble that we still want to upgrade our DT play, but given that the possibilities are further development of Williams (possible though not certain and maybe not likely but we will see) or that McCargo may prove to be the performer we expected him to be and though he is on the depth chart behind Triplett if he blossoms my guess is we sit Williams more than Triplett though there is still some possibility that we chose a player like Okoye, the 06 draft may be the solution on this issue if either of these two rookies step up. 7. In addition to these 4 starters produced by the 06 draft, I feel good about Ellison who I doubt will start in the future unless injury forces it, but injuries to Crowell and to some extent TKO gave Ellison the opportunity to impress the coaches in practice and contribute on the field with 6 starts in 06. Aaron Merz also proved to be an unexpected and unsung hero as he stepped up to start a game at G due to injury despite his being a late throw-in pick. he also became an ST regular. 8. Youbouty is the final player worth noting. It is a fact that most starters are drafted on the first day and that only 1 of our 3 first day picks had a productive 06 on the field. However, complaining about this simply comes off as whining since the 06 draft class simply contributed a bunch of PT to the team' improved record. This complaint look even more small minded and overly focused on the observers expectations and not the real world results when you look at the particulars of why the players failed to produce as much as was hoped for in 06. Specifically, as Youbouty missed training camp because he is the oldest child in a family where the single parent Mom died, I would wonder about him if he in fact blew off the needs of his siblings and came to play this boys game. In fact, it is a very good sign that not only did he eventually come back to be a part of the team, but in fact impresses the coaches enough that he started the game against NYJ when our D scheme called for combating Chad Pennington with an extra DB on the field filling in for the loss of Crowell to injury. In fact. the pre-draft assessment of Youbouty was that he had 1st round CB physical skills but could have used another year of college development working on some technique issues. I think the situation actually bodes quite well for him being at least a player capable of playing the nickel role for us in 07 as again the draft assessment of him was that he should be able to play the pro style well quite early but needed to work on some technique issues particularly related to him playing with his back to the ball on long passes. Though it is unfortunate he did not get the game time he would have gotten in college I actually prefer that he got his year of perfecting his play in our system in the pros rather than getting PT at OSU. If he was able to improve his technique in Bills practice and by watching the success and failures of NC and McGee from the sideline then this likely was a very good year for him. The fact we trusted him enough that the coaches felt they could put him on the field says a lot. I expect he should perform as our nickel and given the help we need on 3rd down this is good. There is also the possibility (possible but certainly not probable) that if NC leaves (which looks likely at this point though it is not a sure thing at all) he MAY even be able to step in as #2. The interesting thing here is that in our scheme at CB he will not be called upon a lot to actually turn his back to the QB and run with a WR. In our Cover 2, the CBs have short (about 10 yards and in) or at most medium zone duty. He will be asked to do press coverage and the pre-draft assessment of him spoke a lot about his competiveness and both willingness and ability to challenge big WRs doing hand battles for position. Who knows if the prognosticators have him pegged correctly, but the Cover 2 was built for him and what he has shown. This sense of him simply makes the whining about our first day choices seem not only short-sighted because of the real world production of PT from second day choices last year, but simply wrong in terms of feeling bad about our 1st day choices. Overall, I do not know what the real world record is of getting first year starters from a draft is. However, getting 4 starters on a team which significantly improved its record from a 7 round draft sounds like it has got to be one of the best results achieved in the NFL last year. While the NYJ draft is one which is probably judged even better than ours as they got two starters on their OL from the first round and made the playoffs (results are the key) it would not surprise me if the key to this result was NYJ doing well in the many other areas where a winning team is built and that even their draft may or may not have produced 4 players who started a majority of their games. It actually is simply a comparison point since if the case is that 1 team or even 4 or so teams produced more PT on a team which improved than the Marv led Bills team it simply means the Marv group was very good rather than #2 or #3. Complaints about producing one of the top 5 drafts as measured in contribution to an improved team is what comes off as whining. I certainly do not think the Bills braintrust is beyond reproach on their draft work in 06 or perfect, but it is simply hard for me to see how they could have reasonably expected to produce better results from their draft than getting 4 solid starters and other contributions from the 06 draft class. The failings i 96 should be certainly be noted, but feeling bad about the results of failings such as the first day production merely comes off as whining since a look at the entire production was simply very good. If this was not very good then what (not how as we all easily see what could have worked out better if Youbouty's Mom had not died) could have been produced in the real world to make this better. if one is going to be devoted to past stats as those who seem to be overly focused on safties rarely being top 10 picks seem to be, what is the precedent for a team improving with 5 or 6 players getting a majority of the games as starts?

Speaking generally, I do not think anyone says that Marv is above reproach on this or that the 06 draft selections were perfect. I think classifying praise for the Marv led teams work in this extreme way is an incorrect reading of this praise and misses the point of the posts. I say this as one who is definitely impressed by the results achieved by the Bills with the 06 draft. I think the facts of assessment of this draft are these: 1. FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT AND CAPITALIZED TO EMPHASIZE ITS IMPORT OF THIS FINDING, ITS TOO EARLY TO MAKE A REAL CONCLUSION AND SO FAR ITS SIMPLY SO GOOD BUT WE WILL SEE. 2. Despite only 1 of the 1st three picks where solid or immediate starters are usually found being what I would call a solid starter (which I define as they started all of their games and are probable starters in 07 pending off-season acquisitions) this draft worked out well for the Bills because this draft produced at least 3 players and actually likely 4 positions with solid starters. Whitner and Simpson not only started a majority of games but likely unless some unfortunate injury occurs will be our starting safety duo for years. Quite frankly if before a draft occurred your crystal ball told me that if I stuck with my current GM and braintrust, that their choices in 7 rounds would yield two safeties that would start for me for years and the rest busts or journeymen and instead I could take some other GM assigned to me at random from the league's braintrust, I'd stick with what I had as getting two solid starters and some role players strikes me as not a bad outcome though certainly not the best ever. The interesting thing is that actually the Bills appear on track to even better than that. Yeah the first day results could have produced more, but the 2nd day produced so much that simply focusing on what could have been better and ignoring or downgrading what actually produced well from the entire draft comes off as mostly whining about the glass being 1/4 empty rather than noting it is 3/4 full. 3. Further, the most impressive thing about us getting 3 solid starter players (Whitner and Simpson cannot conclusively be called good players after a mere one season but the early tea leaves are pretty good and though the jury is way out on Pennington he appears to almost certainly be the starter at RT with the Bills looking to upgrade with new likely OL starters being sought at G rather than at T- the final solid starter is the DT position where though Williams has had this job from Day 1 of 06 our run problems make getting a new starter at DT a real possibility, yet if this occurs while it may be from drafting a player like Okoye it also may simply be through the braintrust producing more output from draftee McCargo, so pending this off-season I think you can count the 06 draft as producing 3-4 solid starters but we digress) is that a key point is that these solid starters did not simply gain these roles because the 05 guys they replaced were so bad or cap casualties, but the 06 team was actually significantly better than the 05 team. The bottomline to me is that what do folks really have expected the Bills to produce from the 06 draft in order for them to have felt good about it? Clearly the real results achieved (all 9 players chosen made the regular roster as it is not unusual to have at least 1 guy make the PS or even get cut outright, 7 of the 9 contribute to this team by getting game starts in 06, 4 of the 9 start a majority of the games) and again most important is that all of this contribution from the 06 draftees was to a team which significantly improved in results over the year before. Marv is far from beyond reproach as the 06 team did not even make the playoffs, but saying that the results produced by this draft were good or even very good is not the same thing as saying he was perfect. I think folks trying to depict pleasure as gushing or trying to depict saying he was very good as claiming he was perfect are the ones being extreme here. The Bills produced very well from the 06 draft and we hope and demand they not only do as well in the 07 draft, but since the draft is not the only way and in many cases not even the lead way you produce a winner, they need to do even better this year. If they go deep in the playoffs then I will gush.

I think the difference between our perspectives is that while you ask whether an SS is more valuable than a DT of equal skill its not true that I would lose every time. The one time I would not lose is when lets say that the two starting DTs I have on my team are Jamal Williams and Casey Hampton, (or the equivalent skill levels as the particular players are chosen to show a skill level not the specific players) and my SS is none other than Coy Wire. If I had a choice in this draft between picking a stud DT with great prospects who after he sits on the bench generally and rotates a bit with my two Pro Bowl starters and breaks into the starting line-up in his third year and is a franchise DT for years and between a OK but not great SS who likely will beat out Wire even though I suspect I will be drafting an SS again in two years, I take the lesser playing SS particularly if I think that I can make the SB this year. While those who are choosing players in their fantasy league are doing the right thing by simply taking the best player at a particular position, I on the other hand am building a team which I think can win (and in this extreme case where I want to win now, or in a case where your GM and owner are going to leave this planet at some time which is probably sooner rather than later so winning now is very important) I have no problem picking a player of lower skill level if I think he is the piece I need to build my team. In the Bills case, they had pressing needs for both DTs and SSs in 2006, but it is clear now that the Bills made a decision going into this draft that if they took Ngata they were going to end up with a safety they considered second tier that they did not want. On the other hand if they chose a safety with the #8 they might have to trade up to guarantee they got the first tier (in their view DT McCargo that they wanted he was no Ngata or even a Bunkley but depending on how this draft went they felt if they got Whitner they could trade up and fill both needs in the draft, whereas if they passed on Whitner for Ngata they were gonna end up with a SS they were worried about starting. I read your posts (I may be reading them incorrectly so forgive me if I am wrong) as being very concerned about which position is worth a certain level pick in the draft and also seeming to feel that evidence of past activity somehow proves what you should do in the present. I think these two points are of interest, but in the end are interesting trivia compared o the overarching need to build a winner and because of our long playoff drought, the Golden Boys age, and the "what have you done for me lately"drive which permeates our culture, I am willing to pick a player at a different level than his position historically calls for to build a team I think can win and win as soon as possible. So yes, i would pick a lesser performing player under some circumstances and those circumstances were present in the 2006 draft where the Bills likely judged they could get both the SS they wanted and a DT they wanted if they chose the SS first, The die was really cast for it to go down the way it did when Oak chose Huff and for the Bills there was no other option than to pick the SS they wanted at #8 because if they did not he might be gone as soon as the #9 pick to DET if they had traded down. Again, the key to understanding this is if the Bills had chosen Ngata, what do you think they would have done at SS, If they were lucky they probably end up with Bullocks who went to DET in the 2nd round where he credited with 30 less tackles and had no INTs. We probably are worse with Ngata playing out of position from where he has excelled for the Ravens and rnfup eith a lesser talent at SS when we end up with two rookies playing safety. If only for the reason that it turned out we needed every iota of talent we could muster at safety with two rookies starting, I'm glad the Bills made decisions which gave them the best performing safety in the draft.

I think it is relevant that our GM did something almost no team did in previous drafts. It shows our GM was on the ball in this draft as the post above which shows how safeties across the board got picked a half a round or more higher than in previous drafts and you saw Marv after this trend began and correctly seeing that teams which picked after us were also in the hunt for safeties h picked well for dealing with this trend. If Marv had followed your seeming advice the Bills would have been making picks which fit past trends but were out of step with trends in this draft. He chose current reality over past stats and I think it is intelligent to deal in reality virtually everytime. Sometimes its good to be against the tide, but we had such a clear need for SS help that if he sent us off on some quest to follow historic patterns we simply would have ended up with one of the SS players who performed worse than Whitner did this season as our SS and this D and likely this team would have had another 5-11 season. I know i was all for picking Ngata before the draft began, but in retrospect Marv appears correct to have gons SS and Whitner in particular rather than Huff for his choice.

The stats are the stats and I am sure this is a rare thing. However, the first tip-off for you that perhaps this was a rare or unusual draft which merited the Bills making a rare move is look at when the safeties were picked in 2006 and how they did so far. If the Bills had started the ball rolling by making the first pick of a safety with their #8 that is one thing, but given that they chose the second safety taken in this draft that is actually really another thing. If this draft had turned out to fit the stats you cite then what they likely should have done was try to trade down knowing that even is someone jumped ahead of their new lower pick or someone chose a safety they still had the other safety (both Huff and Whitner were reasonable choices either being the first safety taken). If Oakland had held fast to the stats you lay out then perhaps they should have looked to fill another need and then the Bills would have been in a position to trade down as many times as they could getting extra resources and it is to be hoped finally nabbing the safety who was left after someone took one of these two. However, with Oak taking Huff, the Bills were simply forced by their decision to cut Milloy to either take Whitner at #8 or risk that someone else might take him before they picked if they were able to trade down. As it happened, they decided to take Whitner at #8 and in retrospect several things show this was a wise move by them looking at what happened in real life. 1. Detroit had pick 9 right after them and given that Det actually used their pick in the 2nd round to take a SS Daniel Bullocks it is not unreasonable (though certainly not guaranteed) that Whitner may not have even lasted beyond the next pick. 2. The next candidate for the SS job if the Bills had in fact traded down and someone picked off Whitner before we got him with a lower pick was Allen by Miami at #15. The stats you lay out clearly indicate that it is unusual for a safety to go in the top 10 (and my guess is that a similar statistical analysis would find it unusual for them to get taken in the 1st round. Yet, while the Bills taking Whitner at #8 was a self-defining pick which made this an unusual year for safety selection, the facts remain that it was Oak not Buff which showed your "rule" was simply not true in this draft, and further with another SS candidate soon going at #15, the question is not really one of why theBills were justified in breaking this rule but in fact it is a question of why the past statistics are simply not applicable with this draft. 3. The other facts to look at are the results of the other SS's who merited 1st day choices. The other SS's taken on the first day were Allen, Bullocks, Manning, Pollard and Huff. I think it is pretty clear from looking at all of their stats that Whitner had the best year of all of these players and even had a better year than Huff who was chosen before him. I think that one might reasonably fault the Bills for not filling the SS hole in some other method or you may want to argue that they should not have cut Millloy, but the Bills clearly made a choice that they were gonna fill the SS need through the draft. A. Can you argue that they would have been better off taking some other player from this first day draft crew than Whitner? Based on what really happens I do not think so. B. Can you argue that they should have kept Milloy or filled the safety hole through some other method (perhaps you want to argue we should have given the job to Coy Wire)? Its not something you do so I will not say your alternative is bad, but in the absence of any suggestion of what else should have been done, this point is fairly meaningless. The question which your post raises is that if a safety is chosen then he better be special and make the Pro Bowl in short order. Okay, I think winning the popularity contest of the Pro Bowl is actually not an assured thing, so subject to competition it is too different from whether a player is good, great or whatever that it simply is not a good standard to use to measure success. In particular, as even your post and others actually say so far so good, Whitner did have the kind of year that actually makes the harsh criteria you set of making a Pro Bowl early in his career as actually something he might actually achieve. Its simply hard for me to see how one can have a huge problem with the Whitner pick and when he was chosen given: 1. The the 2006 draft departs from the stats you lay out, but the Bills were in the middle and not in the lead of the selection of safties in this entire draft diverging from past stats. I think it is hard to argue rationally that they should have made their decision about who to pick at #8 based on past reality rather than the current reality of the 2006 draft. 2, The pick they made pretty easily had the best statisitical year of any of the SS's taken on the first day and was the right choice among the options available and actually with him receiving the defensive rookie of the month accolade for one month, being credited with a part in over 100 tackles ranking him second on the Bills there is good reason to hope and theorize he moght actually justify this pick based on the criteria you lay out. 3. Further, I think folks are enthused about the results produced by this draft based on the overall output that in a mere 7 rounds the Bills produced 4 players who not only got a majority of the starts at their position this year, but as we head into the off-season these four are the odds on favorite to be starters next year, Further, this was not just simply a case that there are tons of openings on a team with a 5-11 record, but with these rookies playing a significant role the team in fact improved to a 7-9 record playing against competition which looks by their record of accomplishment to have been tougher in 06 than the 05 competition. Granted those who are more addicted to the Mel Kiper view of whats important than the teams record om the field being the best measure of a draft class may complain that 2 of 3 first day choices failed to become consistent starters, this fact is so overwhelmed by 3 second day choices joining Whitner to become consistent starters that amy way one cuts it the 2006 draft was very productive for the Bills. In fact, given that in addition to these 4 who ended 06 as clear starters on a team which improved significantly (or perhaps you want to maintain that 2 more wins against competition which included the top seeded teams in the AFC andthe top seed in the NFC was mere marginal improvement) they also got at least one start from 3 other choices, the 06 draft contributed significantly to this improved record. For those psychotically addicted to their own expectations for what a first day choice would do, are you really claiming that this draft should be considered troubling because if only they had done it right on the first day then we actually would have achieved getting even more starts. This is true, but if you add this pretend accomplishment to the real second day players one finds that getting some other DT with the McCargo pick simply eliminates the accomplishments of Williams and that if Youbouty's Mom had not died and he actually met the expectation of starting (I am not sure you want to blame the Bills for killing his Mom, but again this is your fantasy draft we are considering) then it merely increases the Bills take from this draft by 1 starter if in fact they had made the 1st day picks which met past occurence, The bottomline is that back in real life it actually is fairly hilarious that one could feel bad about this draft when one looks at the results. If anything the failure of McCargo and Youbouty to become consistent starters last year actually provides some real hope for this year. It looks like a stretch that Youbouty will step up to fill the shoes of NC if we lose him as appears likely, However, its not like he failed to produce last year due to drugs or injury. In fact, given that he was actually able to be trusted enough by the braintrust to start against NYJ and the result with him playing was that we shut this team down for the most part in their house is quite interesting. The assessment of him was that pundits felt he needed another year of learning his craft and they wished he had stayed in school. Well. he got this year of learning his craft in Buffalo rather than Columbus and I think it is more than reasonable to think he will be ready to step into a nickel role for us. McCargo was a disappointment as Williams beat him out, but some good judgments were being made about his play before the injury which landed him on IR. I would have to see it in order to believe it, but it is not outrageous to hope that the run plugger we need at DT may be found in him stepping up. On the face of it, while obviously one would have preferred to have the NYJ result of making the playoffs this year after having a bad year last year. However, we did not have the"benefit" of stinking so badly last year that we could pick D'Brick without making what likely would have been a fatal trade up to #4. The Mangold pick was a nice choice by NYJ, but again no one could plan on this happening and its hard to fault the Bills for upgrading at C from Teague to Fowler (kudos to JMac for making the right call that he could produce a 16 start season). In essence, complaints about our first day choices which ignores the fact that this Marv led draft simply produced a larger number of players than TD ever produced (and my guess is more than most other teams produced) and these players contributed significantly to a significantly improved team. One can certainly argue they could have done better, but if you are reasonably gonna argue this then the complaint calls upon the complainer to lay out not the stats of how this draft compared to other drafts (those were simply other years with other draft classes) but instead at least give some idea of how the holes left by pursuit of a different draft strategy would be filled (for example, do you not trade up for McCargo because you can show you would get him later or that you knew Williams could be had in the 5th and you knew he was gonna beat McCargo out anyway. or you pass on Whitner at #8 because you lay out a case that makes it clear DET was not gonna take him at #9 and that the Fins would not jump ahead you if you traded down). The bottomline is that your post seems to ask folks to put more value in picking a safety departing from the norm in past drafts (I agree it does but who cares given the need for an SS we created and Whitner being more productive than the other SS candidates taken on the first day) than in the stats which show this draft class contributing significantly (as shown by the large number of starters from this draft and the large number of starts they made) to a team that got significantly better. We certainly woulda/coulda/shoulda done better, but I will take reality over a fantasy league view of the 2006 draft based on statisticial performance in different drafts with different classes of players at different times

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/...1022/cover.html The link above is to PBS TV show which appears here in Buffalo on Sunday morning called Religion and Ethics Weekly. This weeks show featured a piece on our friends in GA having passed a law to punish child sex offenders which requires those convicted of these crimes to register and bans them from living within a 1000 yards of any school, bustop and several points where kids are around. Everyone agrees with the idea of offering maximum protection to kids and on punishing sex offenders, but the piece describes opposition to the law from many religious groups, a police chief who was interviewed and the usual suspects because of what they see as the inability of those enforcing the law to show any discretion in its application. Opponents argue that with this lack of discretion and focus on simply making it impossible for a sex offender to live and work in GA, the law in fact makes it more dangerous for kids as it makes it in any sex offenders interests to go out of sight to avoid the law. Even worse and appropos to this story of one minor getting hauled off to court for having oral sex with another minor more than 2 years younger than him is that some fairly stupid (and really insane) things seem to be happening due to this law. For example: They interviewed one woman who is a definite convicted sex offender as she as an adult got drunk and drugged up at a party and had sex with a minor. Though she clearly violated the law and got punished in a way she )and I suspect most think she deserved) she used her jail time to get a college degree and beat drink and drugs. However, upon getting out she registered as a sex offender (though she shows no signs of being a predator) and went to work for a ministry, She had to move however an give up her job because it was in a church and she lived near a bustop (as most Georgians do apparently). In another case a woman was convicted of a sex offense where she was the older of two parties involved in oral sex, she also has cleaned up her life since 10 tears ago and they showed her going to do her final registation only to find that the law had been retroactively extended so she would be on the list for life and she also needed to move in 5 weeks or else. In yet another case they interviewed a woman whom they defined as a contact sex offender because an older boy had gotten her 15 year old pregnant and when she allowed him to move into their place when his parents tossed him out she ended up being guilty of facilitating a sex crime. The fact that the two kids did actually get married and seem to be raising their young kid made no difference and she too has to move. Upon seeing this, it is amazing how politicians are using sex offender laws to show how tough they are and how folks who range from reformed to even innocent (the non-contact sex offender case shown was rediculous in so many ways) get caught up as collateral damage in the name of protecting kids. The author of he law in fact acknowledges that 90% of the folks covered under the law are not dangerous to kids. Yet, it seems because our society is neither willing to pay the cost of sorting the dangerous from the non-dangerous and we are unwilling to give judges any authority to avoid travesties, we are moving forward anyway. Erring on the side of unfair treatment in the name of protecting kids is understandable, but the legal approaches taken on this case in GA and the one involving this thread seem so stupid and really allowing no discretion for moral action that the whole thing is idiocy that likely will result in more kids being abused ends up being ignored in many cases because it is so unfair in some cases.

Thanks for the work. It would seem to me that in general while your system can provide good rankings of particular players vis a vis each other, that it is pretty dependent on judgments made by the user on Bills team building strategy. How dependent is your system on you choosing the same team-building strategy as the team or do you offer it as your numeric and football judgment take on what they should do. I do not think anyone had Whitner as the 8th best player in the draft where the Bills took him, but certainly if one overlays the need for a SS, it boils down to a likely choice between Huff and Whitner, and then given that Huff was gone, then assuming you picked the right scenario, then Whitner would be the choice. However, one then needs to factor in issues of potential trade downs (which many advocate making a draft focused argument that Whitner was not worth and 8) as this really complicates things. As it turned out, i think with 20/20 hindsight the Bills made the right choice last year as Whitner despite his holdout proved capable of starting immediately for us. In addition, given that the Phins took an SS candidate Alken at 15 and that Detroit who had the next pick had a SS need such they took one with their second choice, they strongly risked losing Whitner if they had not taken him. Add to that Whitner simply produced better numbers than all the first day selected SS players (including Huff) it looks like the right choice and how soes your system take this into account? I think this is particularly important given your identification of Willis as your choice when my sense is that looking at this from a football perspective, if the Bills were to take Willis to replace F-B it likely results in the D taking a step back in production with him starting at MLB. Willis appears to be a better tackler and potentially just as quick as Fletch even today. However, the MLB position is asked to do quite a bit in our Cpver 2, that I think our production suffers while Willis even though a better athlete learns how to be an NFL vet and read plays like a vet. If Marv and Ralph are interested in winning now, the better strategy at LB would seem to either: A. Move Crowell to MLB (his original position) and then draft the best OLB (I assume Polusszny or Timmons) to fill his spot or instead move Crowell and make the strongest bid you can for Briggs. I am not sure how your system incoporates these other options.

Obviously Lynch should be considered innocent until proven guilty in the judiciary. Yet, one does wonder whether having this trouble will drop him down a bit in the draft since judicial courts, business decisions, and the court of public opinion are all different things which quite reasonably operate by different standards. If this issue is unresolved when the draft rolls around, likely the Bills will and should avoid taking him because uncertainty about his availability if he is found guilty or cops a plea to a lesser charge makes him not a good risk for a football team to take with building the team and certainly with a big draft choice. The Bills likely would also hold Lynch to a higher standard than the norm based on their emphasis on character. The drafting of Brad Butler shows that a bad act (or accusation of) is not a disqualifier, but he looks like a thought which is on hold right now.

Youbouty's inactivity simply is not anything one can draw conclusions from as his inactivity was brought to (forced upon?) him and the Bills because he was the oldest remaining child of a family with youngsters where the Mother died soon after the draft. This is different than if his absence came because he played badly in practice, because of a serious injury, or because of a suspension because of some stupid or immoral act. Certainly the preference would have been if he had played, shown good stuff in practice and forced himself into the line-up as a nickel, but he did not and we just have to deal with it, but one can neither conclude that he cannot handle the nickel, starting at CB nor can one conclude that he is a real candidate for more than just getting significant playing time next year on ST and on the field as a reserve. However, though one cannot reasonably conclude much in this situation, he did come to the draft with a fairly clear consensus on what drafting him likely meant in terms of his development and he actually did get a little important PT last year which indicates things. 1. The thought generally on Youbouty leaving school early last draft was that he would profit greatly from another year playing in college. The general assessment was that he actually already had first round physical skills but that he coulduse another year to work on some shortcomings in his game when his back was to the ball and also the he needed to make sure he watched the receiver and did not get locked into looking into the backfield too much. What seemed to impress folks was his competitive nature and ability and his big size. In fact, it really makes sense that he is going to be a CB in a Cover 2 as his job will be to immediately do press coverage on a WR and be willing to fight him tooth and nail for the ball. When the time come for him to run with the receiver he has the speed apparently to do this, but in the cover 2 he actually will only be called upon to let the receiver go as his area is in the short to medium zone and play will not call for him turning his back and running with the receiver alot. He comes out of the same DB producing mill at OSU which produced Winfield and Clements and there is was some expectation of him producing quickly as a CB. 2. The interesting thing I think for his development was that essentially he did get another year to learn the game, but it was as a Bill rather than as a Buckeye. This is certainly better than spending a year perfecting his game at OSU that he got to perfect things within the Bills system and with the tutelage of former DB Jauron and even a little under troy Vincent prior to him moving on. Obviously doing all of this amidst the loss of his Mom was a horrible situation and the Bills and football were clearly a secondary issue while he was getting his family set up, but armed with his NFL first day draftee contract, he also must be thankful that though there is not way that mere money can replace his mother, he is in a position now to do the best he can do deali9ng with the real world. 3. The very good news for the Bills is that since he actually was able to break into the Bills line-up and get some PT prior to the season ending, though he misssed training camp, he did recover enough in practice that he merited being trusted to play, Even better, his play was good enough to even merit him getting a start in the game against NYJ where apparently the scheme in response to the light running and heavily Pennington oriented Jets made for using an extra DB in place of the injured LB Crowell. He played well and actually, i would not be surprised if he is far enough along that he will mount a strong challenge for the nickel even if Clements is resigned and will be in mix for the #2 CB job if NC leaves (as looks likely but it is not over til its over contractually). Overall, it would be nice if wishes came true and Youbouty became a starter last year, but i think the Bills have to feel pretty good about prospects for Youbouty.