BobChalmers

Agree - I'd much rather have Plax than Edwards. Actually, I'd rather have dental plaque than Edwards too.

So a year after the Bills humilated the Chiefs in KC, they are only 2.5 point favorites at home? People are stupid. I'm all over that line. Not really. What you need to understand about point spreads is they are NOT designed to pick the game accurately - they are designed to find the average perception of the betting public. This is because the odds-makers win (make money), not by getting the right answer, but by getting 50% of the people to bet both sides. They win all the stuff in the middle anyway.

Clarksville, Maryland - almost exactly halfway between Baltimore and D.C. Grew up for a time on Woodward Ave. right by the zoo - used to walk through it every day on the way home from school (before they charged admission). Parents both went to Amherst HS.

Sabres and Bills are in no way logically related - specifically, what does what the Sabres do as a hockey team mean to an NFL fan? I guess you are operating from the assumption that we are all local Buffalo fans who root for both teams?? I don't give a damn about hockey, and haven't lived in WNY in years. I am optimistic about the Bills because of what they showed last season when they were healthy, and because of what they've added this offseason. Someone else's feelings about the Sabres could not be more irrelevant. As for your own assessment - saying the Bills if healthy are an 8-win team is completely illogical. What record do you imagine they would have had last year if they had stayed mostly healthy?? They won 6 games devastated by what the Sporting News rated as the worst injury situation in the league. 8 wins last year (if reasonably healthy) seems probable at worst. And last year they had among the toughest schedules in the league - rated both before and after the sesaon. Going into this year the AFC East has the easiest mathcups in the league - against the AFC South and NFC West. The Bills specifically are tied with the Pats* for the fewest games against last year's playoff teams, and close to them for lowest winning % of opponents - I would bet if we subtracted the Pats*-Bills games against each other, the Bills would have the easiest schedule in the league. All that - and oh, by the way, they addressed their major glaring weakness by signing some guy named Mario Williams (and Mark Anderson). The idea that anything less than a 4-game improvement to 10-6 wouldn't be a total disappointment seems illogical to me.

Possible - but I am pretty sure neither of these two princesses would qualify.

Ryan Tannehill is going to make the Dolphins better this year because he IS a franchise QB?? BUST!

Sure - but Aaron Williams was a rookie with (like all other rookies last year) no proper off-season. Worse still, Williams was injured, so I wouldn't judge him too harshly yet. Florence at this stage doesn't have much upside left. I was happy to have him - and I wish him the best, but there wasn't much chance he'd stick on the team, so the nicest thing to do for him as well is to let him go now and see who else needs him. Williams, Gilmore, Rodgers, and the two Irishmen are already plenty. I also happen to think Brooks is going to be among the very biggest steals of the draft across the whole league.

And again - Kyle Williams wasn't there for either game, nor was Wood, nor were either of our two OLT's.

That's just silly hating. Obviously, by definition, Fitz is not a "backup" QB. He's a well-paid starter. You can say you wish he wasn't one, or you don't think he should be one, but to argue he isn't a starter is to argue with reality. (something one tends to associate with people who are "high", btw... ) By stats, he's basically an average starter. We absolutely should be looking for chances to upgrade, but he's better than plenty of QB's out there. Again - he's pretty average. Last year he put up some pretty nice numbers for a guy with busted ribs half the season, and although it's fair to say Gailey runs a QB-friendly offense, given how many people were convinced the Bills needed to add a 3-time alcohol offender WR from Notre Dame with the 10th overall pick, I doubt you want to argue Fitz was aided by an elite receiving corps.

Hasselbeck's awfully old - decent (50/50?) chance he won't be starting this year. I wouldn't take Tannehill or Weeden either. Which Manning? Eli yes, Peyton, well, OK, yes, but he doesn't have too many years left - if any. And I wouldn't trade for Brady on principle. It would be very hard to root for him.

They swept the Bills AFTER the O-line was destroyed. The Bills are going to win in a laugher - see road opener @ KC last year to get the basic idea.

Don't sweat the draft spots, people, they just left everyone's finish the same from last year. Then they played around with some trades. I'm a Florida State alum and fan, and I find that pick 100% ridiculous. EJ Manuel is not an NFL quarterback - he's barely good enough as a top college QB. He's been a collossal disappointment. Innaccurate as hell and not even that athletic.

Spencer Johnson is definitely not a DE in this scheme - just mark him down as a DT right now. Hopefully Carrington is allowed to lose weight and possibly move back to DE. Troup's career with the Bills has to be on life-support right now. Truth to tell, we really don't have much depth at DT behind Williams and Dareus. Spencer Johnson is really the only proven veteran. Heard has been decent. If Levitre plays Tackle for the Bills ever again, this draft was officially a disaster. Levitre moving to OLT (as their 3rd option, after both Bell AND Hairston went down) was the deathknell of the 2011 season.

Why on Earth would cutting Nelson come into it at all?? Nelson is essentially our #2 guy and if he isn't Jones is. How about Caussin, Roosevelt, Clowney, Hagan, Aiken...?? Sheesh - "Cut Nelson" - wtf??

They would have been 8-8 or better with last year's roster if they had just kept the injuries to non ridiculous. With the addition of the two DE's and a good draft, anything less than 10-6 sounds terrible to me. The schedule is also (projected to be) a lot easier this year.

See - this thinking makes no sense to me - they went 6-10 against a brutal schedule and ridiculous injuries last year. Do you not think they improved as a team with Mario and Anderson and what looks like a better than average draft? Do you not think they were hit unusually hard by injuries last year?? Meanwhile both the Jets and Dolphins lost multiple key players. I don't _know_ what will happen, but anything less than 10-6 would be a major disappointment, and a real indictment of Fitz and/or Gailey (or they get nailed with crazy amounts of injuries yet again).

This is post-draft - and yeah, it's a great idea. Now that we know the order guys were taken, we know when we could get them, so our lists are no longer random wishful thinking about when guys would be there. You sort of hurt yourself with the Carder pick - by definition you are reaching on that one JimBob - we KNOW he didn't need to be taken that early.

Were you trying to say "draft"??? Are you literally drinking while typing this, or did you put your malt liquor down long enough to rant for a while? This would sort of help explain how you are comparing the 5'11" Graham with the 5'8" Parrish. No - we didn't get the top big WR - fair point - as others have pointed out, the right guy wasn't available. If Easely can't go, we're "stuck" with Stevie 6'2", Nelson 6'5", and Chandler 6'7" for our midget set of end zone targets.

What spot does he have in any NFL defense? He's still on the board because he doesn't have an NFL position. He's (relatively) small and slow. He is a heck of a college player, and he may well turn out great somewhere in the NFL, but he's definitely a risk because of his poor measureables. I have to believe the Bills are grabbing either OLT or WR with the next pick - probably OLT based on Buddy's comments last night to Chris Brown.

What's especially funny about that is that the national media has finaly gotten to a point now where they know his name is Fitzpatrick.

Sure. Now who says a "high motor" is the main thing Kuechly brings to the table? Noone other than you, from what I've seen. It's A thing he brings to the table. The main thing he brings to the table is the best cover-skills of any LB prospect in years (or ever, if you believe Mayock).

Because we know for a fact (now) that no other team was going to take Brady before the Patriots actually did in round 6. It's really that simple - in hindsight. It means until they had to take Brady in te 5th, they would have been wise (again, it takes omniscience to do it that well) to take anyone else they wanted first while they still could. If Dez White was a wasted pick in round 3, that's an entirely unrelated matter that just means they needed better scouting, understanding that it's an imperfect science. The point is, you can get a damned good player in round three - if you knew someone was going to be around until 6, it would be stupid to take them in round 3 instead of someone else you liked who won't last. I'm not saying anyone (except the '74 Steelers, possibly) can have that kind of foresight - I'm just saying it's an illustration of how you can benefit your team by applying what foreknowledge you have to waiting until the right moment (as late as you possibly can) to get your guys. (I keep using the Bears because Brady is a famous late round future HoF player, and Urlacher is the most obvious probably HoF player from the first round that same draft.)

Sigh. Who said anything about Kiper, etc.? The OTHER 31 teams decide what a reach is, and yes, it has a perfectly logical meaning in that context. If one team goes nuts and takes someone none of the other teams was targeting yet, THEY SCREWED UP! It doesn't matter if the guy goes to 20 straight pro bowls on both offense and defense - the draft isn't about getting the best one guy in the first round, so you can't be grabbing a guy 3 rounds too early and wasting the opportunity to get the other guys your competitors were going to take. If the 2000 Bears take Tom Brady in the 1st round instead of Urlacher, that would have been a mistake. We KNOW they should have waited until the 5th round - yes, we only know that in hindsight, but on the other hand, in hindsight, WE DO KNOW IT. Taking Brady anywhere before the 5th (or 6th if you go before the Pats) would have been a waste of a high draft pick. That's not a question anymore - WE KNOW IT CONCLUSIVELY. Yes, of course it's very hard to know in advance, and impossible to know for sure, but the smart teams do the best they can to play the odds and use their best scouting of the other teams' plans. The dumb teams pretend it doesn't matter and just take who they think the best guy is. Since you raised the "draftniks" such as Kiper, etc. I'll point out that they are merely doing independently the same intelligence gathering and research that the 32 teams are, and offering their best guess to the public on how picks are lining up with where the majority of the teams expect they will go.

Sure - though it tends to correlate with the ultimate (after the fact) strength of schedule. Not precisely though, for sure. Look how lucky the AFC first-place teams got last year with Manning going down and the "tough" Colts suddenly being the "easiest" team in the league to beat. Still, would you rather be lined up against any other divisions this season more than the NFC West and AFC South??

I believe I highlighted where you said NFL front offices don't think about a pick being a "reach". There was nothing there about being a "bust". That's an entirely different matter. "Reaching" is taking someone earlier than they should be taken - for whatever reason. Picking for need instead of BPA is not reaching, and not always a mistake - you only want so many guys at a position, and if you can't get them playing time, you can't even get good trade value for your BPA stockpiling. I'll summarize the point I was getting at more precisely (I hope) this time: - The 74' Steelers thought Stallworth was better than Swann - and yet they took Swann first +++ because they believed (correctly) noone else knew about Stallworth and he would still be there much later +++ therefore it would have been a reach (and a waste of their first round pick) if they had taken him three rounds before they had to - IE, the Steelers brilliantly took their 2nd favorite player first, entirely because they were playing the draft metagame - and therefore they were able to get them both!! - they would NOT have gotten both if they took Stallworth first +++ because Swann played for USC and was a widely known talent - he was going to be gone in the first - Their draft would have been significantly worse if they had taken Stallworth (the guy they thought was the better player) in the first round This is the perfect example of the "game within the game" that is the draft. Disputing that this metagame exists doesn't make it so - it just means one is burying your head in the sand and is essentially admitting one doesn't want to win. Walsh's argument Lombardi was quoting mocked this method of doing business. I say Steelers f/o >>> Bill Walsh. The Steelers didn't just get lucky - they were smart and played the odds on what inside info they had. "Those Steelers are the exception that never proves the rule." No, those Steelers were an extreme (and therefore easy to see) example that illustrates a reality that is often more subtle, but still there nonetheless. Bill Walsh (if we are to believe Lombardi) apparently relied solely on luck for the right players to be there when it was his turn. You can get lucky enough for that to happen too - just like you can get lucky and win the lottery - but please don't confuse that with being smart - it's not. (as an aside, Bill Walsh was also the WORST color commentator ever allowed on a network broadcast.)