BillsVet

They'll also be taking a DE, TE, and G in the first 2-3 rounds. Unfortunately they don't have enough picks. Not yet at least. Draft day for the Bills is all about having more needs than options to fill them with.

Everything will be revealed someday, but having Brandon there is Ralph's answer to hiring a legitimate GM. The franchise has been buying time since Donahoe was canned, first with Levy and now Brandon. They refuse to run the team like the other 31 clubs, and the product on the field will suffer as long as non-football people make football decisions. I don't hate Brandon. But I don't like the idea that someone who was devising marketing schemes a few years ago is going up against Bill Belichick, Bill Parcells, and the strongest football minds in the game. When you compare him to those guys, I don't care how many tidbits he got from Butler, it's not enough. Becoming a great personnel guy takes years of working in the arena.

The Bills are a business first, and it's cheaper to fill your team with late round draft picks, pronounce them capable, and put a team on the field which ultimately doesn't live up to expectations. Buffalo has been in rebuild mode for 3+ seasons now. This is the fourth off-season post-Donahoe, and yet they still have huge issues, particularly LB depth, a starting G, no one with starting experience at TE, and and lack a bonafide pass rusher not named Schobel. Keiaho isn't coming to Buffalo. It's not their style.

Ralph still runs the show, with Littman advising on financial matters, which pretty much covers all personnel decisions. Agree completely here...Brandon gets to make some of the smaller decisions, but among big issues, like firing the HC, he's about third in line behind RW and Littman. I would still like to know his vision for building a football team. Frankly, I don't think he has one, and when compared to Polian and Butler, he's still completely inexperienced.

Is he even the personnel decision maker for this team? When the option to can Jauron was there, it sounded as though 2 of the "inner circle" did not want to retain him while two did. I'll speculate here, but I believe Brandon was one of those who didn't want DJ. He's been given the keys to the football side of the house, but isn't he allowed to make the big football decisions.

Undersized SS who probably reverts full time to FS by his fourth year in the league. That's how I'd build a defense. Signed, Dick Jauron Marv Levy

Chambers is a nice story, but he's not starting caliber on any part of the line IMO. They tried him at guard when Butler went down and he struggled mightily. Expecting him to play an entire season is a smokescreen the front office is laying down. And the same thing goes for Walker playing LT for an entire season. I think a lot of fans think that because he played OK against Seattle that he can handle the role for an entire season. I doubt it. I agree on Hangartner. If he was as in demand, someone would have swooped in and offered him more than Buffalo did. He'll be unspectacular, which is indeed an improvement over Preston or Fowler. Not signing a veteran in UFA demonstrates the Bills are arrogant enough to think a rookie will come in and start right away.

It's a popular refrain to say trade Peters for picks and be done with the entire situation. Unfortunately, it creates another gaping hole on the OL, forcing front office to find more players who can be immediate starters. IMO, the front office hasn't had enough successes on draft day to warrant any trust, and hoping they'll find a LT, OLB, G, and to a lesser extent TE and DE with their top picks is wishful thinking. In effect, we're shipping out a known commodity who wants big dollars for unknown entities that while commanding less money, are completely unproven. Trading Peters because he's difficult is not getting this team into the playoffs any quicker. In fact, it would probably contribute to extending their drought to an entire decade.

The Bills have been fortunate their OL hasn't been injured like other areas of the team were in 07-08. I have no doubt they'll use rookies and untested street FA's to round out their depth on the OL. The idea of Chambers are principle backup is adequate I suppose. But the interior OL is thinner than one-ply TP. If they figure the draft will provide their depth, it's a serious lack of judgment. Bell is a year away from being a player in the NFL, if at all. The remaining non-starters are from the UDFA or street free agent ranks. That lack of experience is disconcerting.

Schonert was a career QB coach when DJ selected him from a pool of one candidate to become OC. Whenever he's questioned, Schonert talks about how much film he's watched and his relationship with Bill Walsh. A guy like that has some issues, but if he were still QB coach I wouldn't mind. Unfortunately, he's the guy putting together the offensive gameplan, and last year it was underwhelming. I understand the concept of the WCO, but no one said the ball can't be thrown into the EZ, or slants can't be used from time to time. Last year, that offense was extremely predictable, and Schonert could not figure out the 3-4 defense no matter how many times he saw it. I don't believe he adequately prepared the offense, and rarely after the first 6 games was his biggest weapon, Evans, used like he should have been. Frankly, I think he ran out of answers by about Week 7. Count me among the unimpressed by all of Schonert's talk. He's yet to back it up on the field. And just maybe the Buccaneers, Bills of 98-00, Panthers, and Giants knew what they were doing in keeping him just a QB coach.

To be fair, the Bills have exactly 2 interior OL with NFL starting experience on their roster. If that makes you comfortable going against the 3-4 teams in the AFCE, that's just delusional. I don't have anything personal against Hangartner. He might be a good player. But it's a risk to trust him to be an everyday player, especially in the division. Just once, I'd like for them to add a proven player who is capable of excellent play. But I don't trust the front office to identify quality players and pursue them. Instead, they'll try to find the golden nugget in the bargain bin. And usually it doesn't work.

Pats-Light (2nd) Mankins (1st) Koppen (5th) Neal and Kaczur (3rd). Steelers-Colon (4th) Essex (3rd) Starks (3rd) Kemoeautu (6th) Former OL Simmons (1st) and M. Smith (2) Colts-Ugoh (2nd) Pollak (2nd) Saturday (UDFA) Diem (4th). Every one of those teams does two things: Find talent in late rounds and draft solid OL on Day 1. The Bills don't draft OL early, with one notable exception, and they rarely find outstanding players late. Generally, they stock their roster with average players who are trumpeted as better.

Indeed he has. However, the fact that Carolina drafted Ryan Kalil in the second round 07 tells me he wasn't thought of as much as a starter like he was a key reserve. The Bills are gambling that he can start AND play well against 3 of the better DT's in the NFL. I wouldn't doubt this move if the Bills brain-trust had more successes than failures over the past 3 seasons. For a team needing to make the playoffs, gambling on former reserves is something I'm not keen on.

I'd like for someone to show what he's demanding, and what Buffalo's offering. There's plenty of speculation, but nothing more than that. Rumors say Buffalo put up 8.5M, while Parker wants 11.5M. No one knows for sure at this point, and saying he wants 12M is akin to saying RW's shoulder most likely has a rotator cuff tear. All we know is Peters wants more than what Buffalo is offering, something to the tune of 3M more than what Buffalo offered as of about three weeks ago.

When can we start playing in the NFCW? Specialty players sell tickets, but they don't win games. It's cliche, but Buffalo never seems to combine a strong OL with those aforementioned speciality types at WR and RB. On defense, the clear lack of a pass rush hampers everything else they try to do. If there's one type of defense requiring a pass rush, it's the endangered species of the C2. No one's running it anymore besides the Bills, Vikings, and Bears. So while it's nice to talk about CBs, LBs, RBs, and WRs, I don't see much changing until they can handle things at the LOS.

I always find it ironic that one of Donahoe's biggest shortcomings was a failure to build the OL. He went out and signed inferior talent to block for the "name" speciality players he drafted. The same thing's happened with Levy/Brandon. They've drafted no one above the fifth round on the OL, signed an average OT in Walker, and severely overpaid for Dockery. The result is an OL which blows no one away, and which will depend on rookies to keep Edwards off his back in 09. Meanwhile, the guy charged with keeping the blindside clean (and team's best OL) is demonized for wanting a new contract. In 06, both the OL and DL had issues. Three seasons of rebuilding later, both lines still need an infusion of talent. Levy and Brandon had/have little clue what they were/are doing, as exemplified by their rebuilding the OL. First they spent huge dollars on underachievers. Now they're going the cheap route with guys like Hangartner who've never started in the league.

I don't think you can point to one guy who's been developed from their rookie season better than Peters. So many fans rag on him for the bad 08 season, but his play at a high level from late 06 to 07 proves what he can do when he's there in camp. If the Bills trade him and throw up the white flag to Peters and Parker, it goes to show that the Bills are not interested in winning right now. Because what they get in return will be draft picks and that's not going to help in 09 like Peters would.

I can't see the Bills going with Pettigrew in the first. They've got too many needs on the defensive side of the ball. In the first I'd like to see either Everette Brown or Maybin. In round 2, Shawn Nelson out of Southern Miss, perhaps Cook from South Carolina.

Sure, the Bills need to win this year. But we said that last year when they'd finished another non-playoff season. And for all the talk about the wilderness years of the late sixties, later seventies, and mid eighties, this 9 year drought hasn't featured the terrible seasons, but I can't imagine worse losses. Problem is, I think many fans (both casual and serious) have grown numb to it all. The Bills have done more to alienate their fan base than perhaps any team in the NFL. Selling games (with more probable) to Toronto, keeping Jauron, and losing 8 of 10 down the stretch to miss the playoffs for a ninth straight year has beaten the fans down. You're right to demand some accountability, but until enough fans finally make their voices heard, the franchise will be led by non-football people like Wilson, Littman, and Brandon into oblivion. Or Toronto, whichever comes first.

Is Trent ready for another in a long line of threads from you?

You're confusing cap hit with salary. The figure can be vastly different, especially considering how bonuses are paid out. Besides, I haven't seen actual contract information on Hangartner and Fitzpatrick. TO is set given the one yr deal, but you've speculated on cap hits by using salary alone.

Mangini and McDaniels are and always will be Belichick disciples. And so they blow up a team when they first arrive, a la their mentor, in the image of a BB team. It's why McD wanted to trade Cutler for a guy who fit his scheme in Cassel. It's why Mangini is removing the "bad eggs" from Cleveland's locker room. Both are rebuilding these teams into their image, no matter who is on the team. They can't get rid of all the names in the first year, but DJ/Marv did the same think in 06-07 with Buffalo. They got rid of the locker room lawyers and wanted to create a new core of players.

DJ's offenses have ranked above 23rd in points just once during his NFL coaching career. The lone exception was the miracle season of 2001. He and Schonert, who have more than 55 seasons combined playing or coaching in the NFL, still have a great deal to prove. Just saying that after this long is very telling

Parcells did the same thing last tear with , IIRC, Jake and Chris Long. I believe Gholston and Ryan were brought in as well.

I've mentioned this before, but the front office must have an overall impression of the draft. There may not be a lot of legit first rounders, but plenty of values in the second round and beyond. In the 1986 draft, Bills Walsh had personnel control for the 49ers. He traded down multiple times in a draft he didn't think featured a lot of top talent. He came away with FB Tom Rathman, CB Tim McKyer, WR John Taylor, DE Charles Haley, LT Steve Wallace, DT Kevin Fagan, and DB Don Griffin. Those seven picks contributed a great deal to their two titles in the 88 and 89 seasons. That's an outstanding draft, and something the Bills needed in 2006. It's a month out, but trading down to build up picks would be a wise move, provided someone wants the 11th pick. Unfortunately, the Bills will be depending on at least their 1st and 2nd round pick to come in and start. With holes at OLB, LG, and to a lesser degree at TE, they'll do what they normally do and hold steady at 11. At least that's what recent history suggests and I'd only advocate this strategy if they didn't like who was available at 11. As for scouting, finding unknown gems is much harder today than it was in the late eighties when Polian was out-doing most franchises.