Cash

Bumping this because Fanspeak ditched Optimum Scouting (or whatever it was called) and replaced them with something called DraftTV and Ourlad's (I've heard of them -- could be a good addition on the cheap?). I tried a 5-rounder with DraftTV and got a result that you ground & pounders would probably ******* over: 9 OT GREG ROBINSON AUBURN 41 G GABE JACKSON MISSISSIPPI STATE 73 TE TROY NIKLAS NOTRE DAME 109 RB CARLOS HYDE OHIO STATE 149 ILB SHAYNE SKOV STANFORD

1. Johnny Manziel - Minnesota Vikings 2. Jadeveon Clowney - Houston Texans 3. Blake Bortles - Jacksonville Jaguars 4. Khalil Mack - Atlanta Falcons 5. Mike Evans - Oakland Raiders Just for the hell of it, I checked my past results. 2010: 0/5 (fun fact: CJ Spiller was the first, and to date only, player in these contests drafted by the Bills. 2011: N/A (lame) 2012: 1/5 2013: 0/5 I'm batting a solid .067. EDIT: Went with Evans to the Raiders, just so someone has him going somewhere besides TB. Still think Tampa takes him if he's there, but maybe Al Davis' ghost falls in love with Evans' size and speed?

Wow, lotta progressive thinking in this thread. I guess it's always 1958 somewhere.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/stats/_/id/13289/tony-moeaki A "complete comeback" still wouldn't be anything special. I don't want a TE in the 1st either way (I want Niklas in the 2nd), but let's not pretend Moeaki is some superstar waiting to break out. He *could* be a decent player.

"Spiller, 26, has 3,021 career rushing yards, 1,070 receiving yards, 1,157 kick return yards and 302 punt-return yards to go along with 18 touchdowns." Sayers through his first 4 seasons (per PFR): 3,834 rushing yards, 1,197 receiving yards, 2,442 kick return yards, and 391 punt return yards to go along with 46 touchdowns. Let's also qualify the raw numbers a bit, and add in games played and yards per whatever. Spiller: 61 games, 5.1 yards/carry, 7.7 yards/catch, 23.1 yards/KR, 12.1 yards/PR Sayers: 50 games, 5.3 yards/carry, 12.7 yards/catch, 31.7 yards/KR, 14.5 yards/PR What we have here is an author using incredibly arbitrary cutoffs (what's special about 1,150 KR yards or 300 PR yards again?) to force an unfair/inaccurate "similarity" between two not-that-similar players. If you just look at players with at least 5,000 all-purpose yards in their first 4 years, Sayers comes in 4th and Spiller 81st. If you require a minimum of 4,000 yards from scrimmage to weed out return specialists, Sayers comes in 3rd and Spiller 46th. Listen, I don't want to give Bill's crusade/jihad too much ammunition here. Spiller is at least a good player, and looked like a great player in 2012. He doesn't have to be Gale Sayers to be worth keeping around. (And that's good, because he's NOT ANYWHERE CLOSE to Gale Sayers.) We don't need to pretend that he and Sayers are in some elite class by themselves to convince ourselves that Spiller is good. It's enough to just look at his 5.1 career yards/carry and breakaway speed, and chalk up last year's struggles to a combination of bereavement and injury. (He looked significantly slower when he came back from the high ankle sprain, and got caught from behind at least a couple times on what would've been TDs in 2012.) And by the way, 46th on that list, while not in any way in Sayers' class, is still pretty good. There's a few flameouts on the list, but it's mostly made up of good players, including (way above Spiller) almost every HOF running back.

Never heard of him, but not surprising they signed a DE. If we assume that Schwartz's D will be more of a pure 4-3 and less "multiple" than Pettine's (which Marrone seemed to confirm last time he spoke about it), then it's unlikely that Dareus or Kyle W. or Branch will be lining up at DE much. That leaves Mario W. and Hughes, and apparently Manny Lawson per Whaley's comments. If we accept that Lawson really is looked at as a base-package DE, that's still only 3 on the roster, which isn't even enough during the season, much less the offseason. Personally, I think Lawson will be cut in training camp, but we shall see. Obviously Wynn isn't setting anyone on fire, but from a pure numbers standpoint, they needed more at his position. I wouldn't be surprised to see a fairly high pick spent at DE as well, especially considering Hughes is going into the last year of his deal.

Most mocks I've seen have Detroit taking Evans if he's available. (Not that I think he will be -- doubt he gets past #7.)

Nah, think I'll go ahead and continue to have my own opinions, but thanks for the suggestion. Please let us know if there are any other topics we're not allowed to discuss or opinions we're not allowed to have.

No. http://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/W/WillMi04.htm He's had 2 good years (including his rookie year, which is pretty rare in WRs), 1 lost/injured year, and 1 healthy but bad year. Throw out the injury year, and he's caught either 63 or 65 passes every year. 964/996 yards in the good years, 771 in the bad. 11/9 TDs in the good years, 3 in the bad. During the good years, he's a good player no doubt, but much more of a #2 than a #1. Comparing his good years to Stevie's, Williams has a small edge on TDs and yards/reception, while Stevie has a small edge in yards and a decent-sized edge in catches. Stevie also wins on consistency, with 3 good years out of 4 once he got his opportunity.

I do share some of your concerns here, and agree that the worst scenario is something like 60-70 catches, 950-1100 yards, 6-8 TDs and another 6-10 record. Because at that point, he's just about worth his remaining contract, but unless EJ makes a major leap (and if we're 6-10 again, he hasn't), is it really beneficial to have 2 $7.5mil WRs who are pretty good but nothing special? On the other hand, and this is pure speculation, Williams' contract is very cheap this year, and cutting him at any point beyond this year would be a cap savings. I hope the Bills are willing to part ways with him at any point, including after a decent but unspectacular year. Maybe the Bills are still hoping Evans falls to them (not super likely he gets past TB, but you never know), and they look at Williams as a potential transitional starter while Evans takes his rookie lumps. (Or whomever they draft in the 2nd or 3rd or whatever.) Just in terms of straight value, Williams >>> 6th-rounder. In terms of the broader implications of this deal, I'm less enthusiastic, but there's still plenty of room for hopeful/positive interpretation.

Totally agree. I don't want "a" receiver at #9, I want Evans because I think he'll be an absolute stud and he seems to be a perfect fit for what EJ needs -- a big, physical outside threat who can catch inaccurate passes, and who can box out and outleap guys to still be a valid target even when covered. We have shifty/quick/fast guys who can try to get open with route running or pure speed, but 1.) they're not good enough to get WIDE open most of the time, and 2.) EJ isn't good enough (yet) to pull the trigger AND put the ball on the money when a guy is barely open. Even beyond that, most defenses in the NFL are pretty good, and don't really leave guys open all the time. You want to have a good passing attack, it greatly helps to have a guy who can just win one-on-one matchups. How many times in the Chan/Fitz era did we see Donald Jones or TJ Graham try to high-point the ball deep in single coverage and fail miserably? Turn even a quarter of those incompletions into catches and our passing game would be a lot better.

Wow, very surprising. Makes me think we won't get Evans. But we shall see.

Pretty cool, but boxGATE? Really? And boxLIFE? Come on guys, you can do better than that.

Welcome! It's really nice to get a visit from a fan who DOESN'T consider the Bills depressing! I mostly agree with what Bandit27 said above, but would add/clarify that last year, we didn't actually blitz much, if you define blitz as sending >4 rushers. Doug Marrone even recently talked about this when asked about the changeover to Jim Schwartz, and basically said something along the lines of, "we wound up not blitzing nearly as much as we expected to, because our front 4 was so good." What Pettine did a ton of was classic zone blitz -- he'd rush 4, but it would be 3 d-linemen and the slot corner, or 2 d-linemen and 2 linebackers, or whatever. Very creative play design, and frequently confused the heck out the offense. I remember seeing a review this offseason of some of our better plays from last year, and it included a play where we rushed 2 guys and dropped 9 into coverage, but still got the sack because one of the 2 rushers was unblocked. That's serious confusion right there. If you guys really don't have much pass-rush ability on the front line, you might see more true blitzes than we did last year, because Pettine might need to bring 5-6 guys to get the kind of pressure he could with 3-4 in Buffalo. But I seem to recall that your D was already really good last year under Ray Horton, especially against the run? Will be interesting to see how your run D holds up. Ours was garbage last year, but that actually represented a pretty significant improvement from the previous 2 years, when our run D was historically bad. Some of Pettine's Jets teams struggled against the run as well. I do tend to think that his style of D lends itself to big/costly mistakes in the run game, because if one guy screws up, the runner basically has to be caught from behind. But we shall see. In any case, I think he's a really good defensive mind and coordinator, and I think you guys will field a very strong D next year. Best of luck, except against us!

Interesting. While that's not exactly shutting him down, it's definitely a cut or two below Evans' season averages. I continue to think/hope the Bills are targeting Evans. It would definitely be a cool post-draft story if they drafted both Evans and Cockrell.

Pass-rushers won't surprise Cordy Glenn, but his season blindsided Doug Marrone Pretty good piece. I would greatly appreciate it if some of you guys could maybe ignore the author for 10 minutes, and just focus on the content? Would be awesome, thanks. And regarding that content, I don't think there's many of us here who still have any doubt about Glenn as a LT, but I have seen a few posts here or there, and there's still plenty in the national media who don't pay close enough attention to realize that Glenn has been really good at LT. But these quotes from Marrone should really seal the deal, in my opinion. There's no way the coach would be this effusive about his LT, and then move that guy to a less-important position in the offseason. Obviously if Glenn's play falls off for whatever reason, then a position switch would be in play, but that would have to happen in actual games. Unless that happens, he's our starting LT as long as he's under contract. I don't think, however, that this closes the door on the Bills drafting an OT high, possibly even at #9. I don't think it's their preferred option, but if Watkins & Evans are both off the board, and someone like Mathews is, then I wouldn't be surprised if they took a guy who could upgrade the starting RT position immediately, while also serving as the backup LT in case Glenn gets hurt, and (down the road) serving as LT insurance in case they can't sign Glenn to an extension. But to me, there's zero chance that an OT drafted at #9 gets installed at LT with Glenn moving over to RT.

Agreed. Evans is the guy I want, and probably the only realistic prospect at #9 out of: 1. Clowney 2. Mack 3. Robinson 4. Watkins 5. Evans 6. Mathews I'd be quite happy with any of those at #9. I could live with Lewan or Ebron, but I'd rather trade down than take either.

It might surprise you to learn that Niklas almost doubled ASJ's yards per catch: http://www.rotoworld.com/articles/cfb/46280/349/out-of-the-box He's definitely an athletic tier below the top guys (Ebron, Amaro, etc.), but I fell like his blocking would make him a real asset. Probably more of a Heath Miller than a Jason Witten, but IMO definitely worth it in the 2nd.

Awesome. Can't believe I missed that or forgot about it since. That game enraged me for years.

Agreed, all this "look at me" stuff is offensive when I turn on my TV to look at these guys. It's almost like they think 70,000 people paid a bunch of money to come watch them play? I don't think a hair rule goes nearly far enough, though. For starters, we need to stop encouraging showboating and individuality by putting player's NAMES right on their jerseys. Get rid of those right now, and hopefully we can get rid of the numbers eventually. Even without a name on his jersey, everyone would still know #18 on the Broncos was Peyton Manning -- kind of defeats the purpose, you know? Once we get rid of the names, we can start in on all this listen to me jawing the players do on the field. I'd like to see a 20-yard penalty added for talking on the field of play. I'm sick of having to listen to these thugs yelling through my screen every 5 seconds. "Omaha! Omaha!" "43 is the MIKE!!" What kind of message does that send to the kids?

I think it's very smart to trade up 8 spots to #1 overall for a RT.

To answer your first question, "to save money." The Bills have a history of not paying starter salaries to backups, and cutting former starters after they're beaten out in camp or during the season. I agree with everything you said in your last paragraph.

Interesting if true. Most likely scenario is that it doesn't happen, and quite possibly this is just a fake leak from the Texans to drum up more interest from teams in the top 8. But it's fun to speculate, so let's pretend it's real. There's a lot of speculation that the Bills like Evans a lot, and given Marrone's very uncertain comments about Hairston, I have to think they're interested in the tackles as well*. But I don't think you move up to #1 to draft Evans or one of the tackles, especially if you're planning on playing the OT at RT for at least 2 years. So who would they move up for? QB is out. The OTs are out. Watkins is a possibility, but all the way to #1 for him? I dunno. That leaves Clowney and Mack, either of which would make sense. The only thing about Mack, though, is that he's probably a run-package OLB (nickel DE) in a 4-3, and Whaley sure sounded gung-ho on Keith Rivers being a full-time starter. You don't trade up to #1 to draft a part-time player. So I think it's really Clowney or bust in this scenario. *Here's my logic: Pears had a down year last year AND is in the last year of his deal. Whaley said "the plan" is for Pears to continue starting this year, but didn't sound super confident in Pears. I feel like if the Bills can upgrade the RT spot, they'll probably cut Pears in training camp, but if they can't upgrade that spot, they're willing to roll him back as the starter next year and find a replacement next offseason. As for that upgrade, FA has been picked clean, so that's out. If Hairston was already medically cleared, then it would make sense that he'd be looked at as a possible upgrade, but according to Marrone, that hasn't happened yet, so they can't possibly be counting on him at this stage. That leaves Thomas Welch as the only other tackle on the roster, which is very light for this time of year. All of their young/cheap/developmental/deep backup linemen are interior guys except for Welch. So I can definitely see them being interested in one of the top tackles, because he could probably start at RT right away, serve as the backup LT if Glenn gets hurt, and (from Whaley's perspective) provide insurance against Glenn leaving in 2 years.

You know there's no way we'll get a comp pick for Byrd, right? If we'd let Byrd walk but signed someone like Louis Delmas or Ryan Clark or whoever for half the money, I think you'd see more fans and writers praising the Bills for shrewd management. It's the combo of letting him walk and seemingly planning to replace him with a mid round rookie who barely played last year that's the problem. (Or replacing Aaron Williams, for those fans who insist that Williams is Byrd's replacement. Point is, there's an open starter at S, and the Bills are publicly saying that Duke Williams or Meeks will fill that role. That doesn't inspire confidence.)

Seems kind of nit-picky to me. What if the new owner pulled an Irsay or a Modell and just up and left? Erie County could sue the Bills for breach of contract, and would win, and would presumably get the $400 million liquid damages specified in the lease. Kryk's supposition (or more accurately, his source's supposition) seems to be that a new owner "can't" leave without first getting prior permission, but people break contracts all the time without first getting prior permission.