Dibs

hole

Tasker

For the most of it, I agree wholeheartedly....however. My point basically was....what if there was something Marv & Co. didn't like about N'Gata(& Bunkley). OK....it seems in hindsight that having reservations about N'Gata were not warranted(as appears so far)....but it was totally reasonable to not draft him based upon their pre-draft assessments(that & he doesn't have the quicks for the D....but that's besides the point perhaps). Just because we might have drafted a better player(N'Gata).....that does not mean that the player we drafted was a bad pick. In 2002 was the Cowboys pick at #8(SS Roy Williams) not a good choice because they could have gotten DE Dwight Freeney? In 2001 was the Panthers pick at #11(MLB Dan Morgan) not a good choice because they could have gotten G Steve Hutchinson? The list is endless. In the end....we did not draft N'Gata(for probably multiple reasons). Maybe it's a pity we didn't......and a damned good job we didn't draft Bunkley. I don't see how it's such a terrible thing that we didn't. N'Gata might not excel in the D. He may well have become a lazy fat slob(as mentioned by many pre-draft). McCargo might come on gangbusters next season.....or the one after. In case nobody remembers, McCargo was a first round pick. As far as I see it, we used a great deal of draft resources on the DT position(& it needed it.....& then some). I still can't understand why all the whinging. We got a good player who performed as one of the....what?......top 6 1st round rookies?......top 8? People are strange.

Also..... .....apart from the whole scheme situation, has anybody put forward the concept that there was something about N'Gata that Marv & Co. didn't like? Something in him that made them a little cautious in selecting him.....maybe motivation/weight/etc? There were many posters here pre-draft last year who had strong reservations about N'Gata. It looks like any reservations they may have had were unfounded & N"Gata is going to be a good player....but.....where is the crime in them not selecting him with the #8 pick if they were not as confident in him as they were with Whitner? Selecting N'Gata makes hindsight looks great but IIRC there were heaps of posters here who would have been ecstatic had we selected Bunkley(who may still pan out). At this point I think everyone is happier with Whitner over Bunkley. It seems to me that the Whitner pick could ONLY be deemed a good one by some here if he ends up being a better player than every single player beneath him within the 1st round. N'Gata panning out & the Whitner pick being good are not mutually exclusive to each other. So we didn't pick N'Gata.....big deal.

It bothers me that so many people talk about how great(or bad?) our draft was period. It certainly looks like the makings of a great draft....but things can change. Players might not develop further, or simply regress. Injuries could limit/stop players. Many things can happen. In regards to Whitner however.... As I see it, your point is the only valid argument against the Whitner pick.....though I think it's validity is watered down in the modern era. Safeties are considered more valuable/impact than in previous years. The fact that ALL of the top prospect safeties were picked well above their typical 'projected' slots shows that the NFL teams(which are really the only ones that count) placed a higher importance on Safeties than the draft 'experts'. e.g. 1st 3 rounds of safeties & where ESPNs 'big board' projected them to go. #7 Huff(I don't use him in the argument since he is projected at CB) #8 Whittner(BUF).....projected at #20.....UP 12 #16 Allen(MIA).........projected at #27.....UP 11 #40 Bullocks(DET)....projected at #53.....UP 13 #42 Manning(CHI)....projected at #69.....UP 27 #43 Harper(NO).......projected at #108....UP 65 #54 Pollard(KC).......projected at #95......UP 41 #83 A.Smith(PIT).....projected at #86......UP 3 #97 E.Smith(NYJ).....projected at NOT EVEN RATED It's unfair to compare Whitner to 'probowlers'. When you compare Whitners rookie year to all the other top 10 Safeties rookie years, he is right up there. Regardless of position......since 50% of all top 10 picks are total busts......and obviously only a percentage of those that are not busts become stars......I'd say that any top 10 pick that does not become a bust & becomes at least an above average player is a good pick. Not a very good pick....or a great pick....or an awesome pick............a good pick. If one was to argue prematurely that this was a good draft Whitner would most certainly be one of the main reasons in the argument. After their rookie years, few 1st rounders(top 10 included) manage to achieve solid starter levels. Less than 50% would even contribute(much) to their team at all. Oh yes.....Whitner can be considered a factor for this being considered(prematurely) a good draft.

I hate defending TD because I dislike what he did for us & I dislike his philosophy on how to run things....but.... It is true. Randomly grab a good handful of teams & pick a five year period of time. Most teams will be totally comparable to the Bills in the number of day two starters they have from the five year period......i.e. around 1. Those that have more tend to be very bad teams with weak rosters......or simply aberrations from the norm. I'll leave that research for you to check & realize you are incorrect. The research I'll do for you to prove that not only should you not pick an exception to the norm to try & prove it wrong.....but your exception was incorrect in the first place..... 1999 (J.Johnsons 4th(& last) season with Dolphins) Dolphins achieve the #5 ranked D. Starters(season beginning roster) include..... 1st round picks X2 2nd round picks X2 3rd round picks X2 2nd day picks X2(both from 1996 draft) Free agents X3 2001 (J.Johnsons 2nd season removed from Dolphins.....Wannstedts 2nd season) Dolphins achieve the #5 ranked D. Starters(season beginning roster) include..... 1st round picks X2 2nd round picks X3 3rd round picks X3 2nd day picks X2(from 1996 & 2000 draft) Free agents X1 Honestly.....less "I reckons" & more "here are the facts" next time you correct people would be appreciated.

After 1 full year, day 1 looks pretty average/decent....it actually looks better than most day 1 drafts look after 1 year. Not 'good' mind you.....certainly not bad though(with a season long starter who gets a rookie of month award & another player with significant game time before injury.....you'll find this will be on the upper end of average for most day 1 drafts) Just saying...

Good way of looking at it. I've always felt the FA market is a bit like the draft.....hit & miss and you usually don't know which until the player has played at least 2 full seasons with the new team. This is why I like up&comer FAs. The money level is lower.....the expectations are lower.....the upper potential is greater.....and the potential disappointment is lower. There is nothing worse than forking out top dollar for a star who ends up playing like a basic starter.

Hopefully.....by the end of 2007......if we compare Peters to any combined year of FA acquisitions, Peters will win. I'm totally with you on this one Bill......it's an absolutely amazing occurrence for us. In perspective.....assuming he reaches the heights that many feel he will......that is a bigger upside than most felt we could ever obtain from M.Williams.....and he was the #4 pick. Every time I think about him I

Agreed........but there are always many factors to consider & the 'band-wagon' style thinking tends to simply grab an extreme & run with it.....& in this case, flip-flop to it's opposite extreme when opinion changes.(I'm not trying to lump all in with this......it's an observation on a trend). Even though there are only two final options, that doe not usually mean there is an obvious option to the decision to be made. A lot of posters here believed the decision was obvious one way........then it became obvious the other way. IMO the decision is faaaaaaar from obvious. There are many, many factors involved which all need to be analysed & weighed up to hopefully make the best decision for the long-term benefit of the team. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe NC was useless & a waste of space......and now(10 weeks later) he is worth one of the bigger contracts in the league(regardless of how we are situated in regards to other factors beyond his basic talent). Maybe the majority here is correct in assessing things so bipolarly.

My flip-flop comment was directed towards the poster here, not a comment on players performances.....& yes.....to an extent it is similar with JPL.....maybe Willis....not Peters though(has anyone ever hated him?). It's the strength of opinion changing to it's opposite with equal strength that I'm commenting on. To go from....."NC, get rid of him!"....to......"Pay him whatever he wants!" is flip-flopping. Not just changing opinion, but going from one extreme to the other extreme. Flip-flopping. It was not long ago D'Quixer was being constantly argued against about his views on how good NC is. Now it's the complete opposite.

....with 2 picks in each of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th rounds.

This is how I feel. It's all about value for money.......particularly for a team supposedly tight with money. I've now witnessed a flip-flop band wagon. Firstly I saw post after post crying how over-rated NC is etc, etc & to 'let him go' because he is not worth the money. After he has a good year I see post after post saying how it's worth over-paying for him because you can't just replace that sort of thing. I see post after post about how we should "fix the lines"......"stop the run"......."we need OGs"....."too many DBs, not enough big guys" etc, etc, etc.....yet when faced with down-grading at the CB position, everyone is up in arms. We had the 7th ranked pass D with 2 rookies starting & McGee(who struggled in the first half of the season). A down-grading at CB is certainly appropriate if it means we use the money for OGs, LBs, DTs etc, etc, etc. I'd hate to see us in 3 years time unable to re-sign Evans, JPL, Peters, Schobel, etc, etc due to NC being on a mega-deal. If we do re-sign NC.....he'd better not regress to 2005 form(i.e. not worth the money he'll be getting).....the boards will melt-down.

....& I guess we can truly compare 2006 to 2004 when we finish 2008.....not right now. After 1 season, JPL hardly saw the field & Peters was 'special teams guy'. Evans showed promise & produced good #2 numbers.....after 2 full seasons the jury was still out on whether he would be a #1 WR. Apples with apples please. *Also, JPL should really count in the 2005 draft IMO since it was the 2005 1st round pick that mainly paid for him.* *Also, FAs should not be included in assessing draft classes unless direct picks were traded for said FAs....IMO.*

As I just wrote in another thread......& I'm no expert....but I'm pretty sure this is correct..... The Cover 2 D we use does not require the CBs to be exceptional cover-corners to excel(as a D). It makes little sense to pay top dollar for a player with great WR blanketing skills if the defensive scheme we use calls upon this expensive skill less than other defensive systems will. It looks like Fletcher goes.....& there are some very good LBs in FA this year. More importantly, there are several very good OGs in FA. I'd be far happier if we got 2 of Dielman, Stinchcomb & Davis......a top LB....maybe Ian Scott for DT.....& a decent zone-D CB for our money. I won't be unhappy if we keep NC though. It obviously can't hurt having such a good man-cover CB.

I totally agree.....though Mickey didn't actually say it was a legendary draft......he said that if thing pan out as he expects....it will be a legendary draft. He may well lose his wager & all the guys could regress or not improve any further.....and none may be on the roster in four years time. I hope he wins his wager though.

Hopefully we spend the money on one/two OGs in FA.....a LB(simply reusing Fletchers money).....a decent CB(not megga buck decent).....re-working a contract or two. The money soon goes....plus, even though our young up&comers are under contract, in a few years we will need space so early re-working of players like JPL or Evans would make sense to me. Re: your Q. I never said the secondary plays less of a role in terms of coverage.....I said the CBs are not required to man-cover as much as other defences...unlike Greys blitz D which required 2 CBs which could survive on islands. The safeties become more important & versatile in this D(as far as I'm aware.....I'm no expert). Has there been a top flight cover-corner in any of the Cover 2 Ds? I remember the safeties.....Lynch, M.Brown....the Colts D is a different animal with Sanders back. My point on NC is that he is worth sooooo much because he can blanket a WR. Since we require our CBs to do this less than most teams, it makes sense that we would value the ability less than teams using other defensive schemes. Assuming this is correct, it should give you more hope that we won't actually go for a CB in the 1st to replace him since a good zone guy will suffice in this D.

I totally agree with your thoughts on what NE will do with Samuels. The situation is very different than what they had with Law. Law was old & missed the final 9 games with the Pats due to injury. Signing him to a long term, BIG money deal was a totally different proposition than signing the young/healthy Samuels. I don't see that they have any problem spending money on their 'star' players. They paid Law after his 1st contract......I can see them paying Samuels likewise. I disagree however with your first line. I don't think we will be stupid at all to let Clements walk. Apart from that the general feeling after last 2 seasons was he was just 'above average' & it was only into this season that he has shown his abilities again(read: there is a consistency concern with him).....he is a top cover-corner. We us the Tampa 2 D which requires less man-cover ability than most defenses. It makes little sense to pay a player above what they might be worth.....particularly if their best attributes(the attributes that make him cost sooooo much) will be under utilized on your team. I certainly won't be upset if we sign him though........just not too upset if we don't either.

IMO the Rams will be after the same FA DTs as us.....particularly Ian Scott. They were worse than us in run D (31st yards allowed, 30th ypa). They use the cover 2 so they NEED better DTs(as do we)....&.....since they use zone predominantly(like us), they don't need an exceptional lock-down corner like NC. I'm doubtful they will go after him.....particularly after drafting Tye Hill last draft...... ......Unless they are planning on changing their D system this off-season.

Your point is THE most important aspect to this.......and most people do not seem to realize it or factor it into their thoughts. You've said it extremely simply here so I might elaborate on it for those that need more detail. When oregonbbfan said .......it is not really that big an issue in regards to the small markets. What is a big issue is that the 'extra' money generated counts towards the collective NFL income in regards to determining the salary cap figure.....but does not get counted towards the shared revenue pool. What this means is that if DAL 'earns' itself 80mil extra(& good on them) than the Bills(for example).....both teams operating expenses(salary cap) would increase by $1mil(based on 40% cap take). Even if the Bills(small market) tried everything possible to increase revenue, they would still find themselves operating at far lower profit margins than the large market teams.....and as things progressed, cash flow could become a severe problem. Example 2. For ease.....lets split the league into Large market(L) and Small market(S) 75-25.....or.....24(L)-8(S) If the 24(L) teams all earned themselves(on average) $64mil of non-shared dollars.....and the 8(S) teams all earned themselves(on average) $16mil of non-shared dollars. The salary cap would be $20.8 million above what it would be if that money was not included. This means the (L) teams are making $43.2mil profit(ave) out of their extra $64mil(ave).....67.5% The (S) teams would be making a loss of $4.8mil on their extra $16mil......negative 30%.....a loss of profits even though they work as hard as the (L) teams to raise revenue. The problem isn't the (L) teams making the money & not sharing it with the other teams....... The problem is that they are spending 40% of it on the players....& the (S) teams are forced to do likewise. The (L) teams making a lot of extra money is actually costing the (S) teams more money than before. It is tantamount to getting the smaller revenue teams to help pay for their players salaries.....since....due to their (the (L) teams) raising of the overall cap by (from example above)....$25.6mil each.....yet the cap cost to each individual (L) team is only $20.8mil. Are people following this? The end result is the (S) teams paying some of the bills of the (L) teams. *side-point* This greatly reduces the percent of profits for a small market team. People say...."well they're making millions so what's the problem?" The problem is.....if you had money invested in....let's say a term deposit, you'd expect a reasonable amount of interest. If you had....I don't know....$500mil invested, that reasonable amount of interest is HUGE. At 5%, you'd get 25mil back profit a year....& we all know that 'business' expects much greater profit margins than us shmucks. If we expect Ralph to give away his money(reasonable interest) so-as the Bills can compete with the big boys.......why not expect the fans to forgo the profits on their shares/term deposits/land value increases.....etc, etc, etc.

I just wrote/researched a really long post & lost it just before I was finished.....sob....it had lots of good points. Quick summary. NC didn't replace AW. AW 1999 NC 2001 AW left 2004 IMO AW was obtained to accommodate the GW/Grey D which required two very good cover CBs.....they obviously forgot that if they succeeded, there would be heaps of money needed to maintain it. AW was considered(generally) at the time of leaving us, a top 5 CB(or there abouts)......at least that is what Lindy's & PFW mags rated him at.....also his contract size reflected how he was perceived. What does it matter what the TD/GW/MM era did in regards to what we do now? Surely we should pick what is best NOW regardless of Bills history. Here's the BIG point though..... In the end...."drafting too many CBs in the 1st round" comes down to 1 pick(i.e. 1 CB less & it would be a totally reasonable numbe)....regardless of reasons/excuses. If we had picked an OL instead of NC, that would have made 3 1st round picks in 7 years on the OL.....but I digress. HERE IT IS....THE BIG POINT NC = 1 first round pick (#21) Rob Johnson(& Bledsoe) = 3 first round picks (#9, #13, #22) & a second round pick & all the other little add ons to the RJ, DB & JPL trades Had we succeeded in trading/acquiring a good QB with the #9 pick back in 1998(the RJ pick)....or even if Flowers or MW had panned out, we would have had multiple, multiple, multiple picks extra to play with.....and we wouldn't be too concerned with the fact we are facing losing our top CB.

Good work....the most surprising thing(for me) was to find out that OAK had the #1 pass D this season. Who'd have thought? I think we'll need another young stud LB as well....what with Fletcher looking to be gone & Spikes(though in my mind expected to be back strong) still a big ????? I don't think the loss of NC(I'm expecting him gone) will effect the D as much as most fear. As long as we get a decent/good replacement, the drop-off should not be that noticeable.....we use mainly a zone D....why pay the extra money for a CB who can blanket a WR when the ability would be used less than elsewhere. I think you are correct.....we are close to being an elite unit. Fingers crossed...it'll happen.

I think the analogy is closer to the guy 25 yards down field is covered. Do you risk the 50-50 catch/int? I guess that would depend on the situation you are in. Again..... Did we have the best draft we could have????? NO Did we have a great draft???? YES Did we know how we could have made the draft better....pre-draft???? NO Did some people foresee a better way we could have drafted????? By the laws of probability.....YES Should we be happy that....even though it could have potentially been better.....we had a great draft???? Apparently NO......I still don't get it.

I agree with the assessment you guys have of these players.......just not in the context we are looking at. We are looking to replace our perennial 1000yard(pretty much) rusher who has run behind bad OLs with a 1st round draft pick. By "Bust" in this instance I meant not good enough to be an improvement on WM. Benson.....272yards as a rookie followed by 647 is not going to be an improvement on WM. A.Smith.....looks decent enough at times but is obviously not consistent enough. Neither RB.....in the short nor long term would have me or many others happy with spending our 1st round pick when we had a serviceable(though flawed) RB signed on the roster who was producing better with more consistancy.

OK....I definitely lied about being finished. OK so now we get back to the argument of SS at #8. I see a reasonably argument to this but......all this was covered last off-season. I'll copy out the relevant parts to a post I made last off-season regarding this concept responding to another poster.