Cash

Count me in as one of the many who's psyched about this. These are basically the exact unis I was hoping for the last time we had a change (and I've been pining for them ever since). Now the question becomes, whose jersey do I buy?

I'd say these are the quotes we're thinking of: Followed almost immediately by: So Locker's alleged inaccuracy is excused because he was in "a low-percentage offense," but God forbid a coach justify something by blaming the scheme. Huh? I really liked a lot of what Razzano had to say, but I think he's making the same excuses as everyone else, just for Locker instead of Newton or Gabbert.

I don't totally disagree. But keep in mind that his FO also drafted Manning & traded him for Rivers when they had Brees on the roster, and Buddy compared that situation to our current situation. My best guess is that Newton is tops on his board, and Miller is #2. If the Panthers pass on Newton, we grab him, then go D in round 2. If (as expected) the Panthers take Newton, we grab a Miller, draft Von Miller, then go for a QB at #34. I'm guessing either Dalton or Colin K. For some reason, I don't think the Bills are high on Dalton. Maybe just because I like him, and my QB judgment is horrible (my moronic pro-Clausen posts last year are proof of that). I'm guessing that Miller is above Dareus on their board, although I doubt it'll come into play, since Denver probably takes Dareus no matter what. I feel like Miller exactly fits the profile of a Nix/Gailey pick. Nix has said our biggest need is stopping the run, but last year, he said our biggest need was O-line, and didn't address that till round 5. Nix and Gailey both are among the most forthright decision-makers when it comes to the draft. Or they were last year, anyway.

Wait a minute... There's a Cameron Jordan and a Jordan Cameron in the same draft? I hope the first one to get drafted has his name written directory style on the card. That should cause some confusion.

I dunno, he seemed very enthused about the prospect of winning with Fitz while grooming a guy on the bench. I think at least 1 of the QBs is #1 on their board. What I have no idea on is whether both of them are above Miller or Dareus, and which QB they like better. If I had to guess, I'd say Newton is tops on their board, but who knows?

Nix should be coming on in the next segment, maybe around 12:45p? Florio is interviewing Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland right now. Florio is confirming how dumb he is.

Does anyone else vehemently disagree with the bolded statements? I mean, besides Buddy Nix. Yeah, there's needs in the back 7, and the pass rush needs to get better, but the biggest defensive need is clearly stopping the run. And with Marcus Stroud gone, there's a bigger hole at DE than anywhere in the back 7. Can't say I'm a fan of Nawrocki, especially after his column about Cam Newton.

1) Yeah, technically, but the draft makes a ton of money, and neither side has discussed eliminating it. Even if the season gets canceled, there will almost certainly be some sort of college draft before the 2012 season is played. 2) Yes, big time. In fact, the more we address the lines this year, the less likely we are to stink enough to get Luck. And I'm with you on not wanting to go 1-15 next year, anyway. 3) Meh. In the classroom, Luck is a rising senior, and will graduate next year. I guess he could decide getting a Master's is worth putting off the NFL for one more year, but I don't really see that happening.

Who has ever called the lockout insurance a sham? What a weird take that would be. I guess it would mean that the TV deal had provisions on paper for the networks to continue paying the NFL, but in actuality, the NFL wouldn't receive any payments? That would be a sham, but I don't think that was the case. The lockout insurance was certainly a negotiation tactic, and would've proven a very effective one if it didn't expressly violate the terms of the old collective bargaining agreement.

The head coach of the Buffalo Bills disagrees: http://blogs.buffalobills.com/2011/04/11/chan-on-von-miller/ Zero percent is a little low. No, I don't think it's a lock, but coupled with Nix's comments about how the need at ILB is much greater than at OLB, and Chan's comments last year, I think it's a pretty good possibility.

Merriman and Kelsay are the current starters at OLB. Both were signed to new contracts in the last 7 months, which means that the front office considers them part of the solution. Given Chan Gailey's comments, I think Miller starts at ILB from day 1, moving to OLB or DE on passing downs (depending on the defensive formation). Then I guess he'd probably play WLB when we play a 4-3 base, although I wouldn't be shocked if they put him at MLB.

I had the same reaction. Right off the bat, I was like, "this kid's a moron." Then he gets up to the dry erase board, and I'm like, "I take it back. He's like a completely different person now." I'm a pretty big Dalton fan; I just wonder if he has the requisite physical tools to be an NFL QB. He passes pretty much every metric there is for college QBs (starts, wins, passing stats, Wunderlic score, leadership), but he's not seen as more than maybe a 2nd-round pick. That makes me think the scouts don't think he's physically good enough for the NFL. I'm pulling for him, though, and I'd be pretty happy if we drafted him.

Agreed. Miller fans love the Mathews comparison, but Mathews is himself undersized, and succeeds despite that. If Mathews hadn't been considered undersized, he would've been drafted higher. Sometimes undersized players do well in spite of their size, like Mathews. Sometimes undersized players don't do well because they're too small. It's hard to say for sure which way Miller will go until he actually gets in the NFL. I thought Buddy Nix's recent comments on Miller were interesting, where he talked about how Miller might play ILB on 1st and 2nd down. ILBs are generally smaller (and less valuable) than OLBs. I guarantee you that if Miller played at 260+ lbs. in college, Nix wouldn't be talking about whether he'd play OLB or ILB in the base defense. Personally, I could live with Miller, because there's only one risk with him (size), and it's not necessarily a dealbreaker. But I don't see him improving the run D, don't see him playing more than half the snaps as a rookie if Merriman stays healthy, and I'd prefer either Dareus, who is a safer pick and fills a bigger need (and is much bigger!), or to roll the dice with the tremendous upside potential of either QB. (I actually don't like either QB, but if you want to get a franchise guy, you have to take a risk. Not even Peyton Manning was a sure thing.)

Keep in mind that before last year's draft, Buddy Nix identified O-line as our #1 need, then proceeded to ignore it until the 5th round. I don't think Walter's scenario is that far-fetched.

Thanks again for that link! I've seen you post it before, and it's phenomenal. You're certainly not the only person saying this, so sorry if it seems like I'm picking on you, but I just don't see it. Carrington is a third-round talent who barely saw the field last year, and didn't really do anything when he did get on the field. Now we can just pencil him in as an above-average starter in year 2? I don't dislike Carrington or think he sucks or anything, but I just don't know where all this faith comes from. Most third-rounders don't become reliable starters in year 2, especially after getting a total of about 200 snaps in year 1. I hope Carrington becomes a stud, but hope is not a plan. I don't see him as someone who can be counted on as a solid starter. My only problem with this logic is the bolded part. I don't trust George Edwards to build any kind of successful NFL scheme. I was unimpressed by our scheme last year, and Edwards' only previous year as a defensive coordinator was the 2003 Washington Redskins: http://www.pro-football-reference.com/teams/was/2003.htm 24th in points allowed, 25th in yards allowed, 28th in first downs allowed, 26th in yards per pass, 21st in yards per run, 28th in total rushing yards allowed. With some solid talent on his defense, particularly at LB, and Champ Bailey in his prime. Not so hot. This will be only Edwards' third year as a defensive coordinator, so there's a real chance that he turns it around, but I have no faith that he will until I see otherwise. Having said all that, I agree that personnel-wise, we're not really served by trying to pick up a new NT. Williams is a good player, if not a fit for every scheme, and Troup needs PT to develop. If Troup doesn't develop, then we'll need another NT, but that's not a problem for this offseason. One reason I have no confidence in George Edwards is that Kelsay continued to play LB in the base 4-3 defense once we moved to the hybrid. (At least he was playing DE in nickel and dime packages.) Maybe that's not Edwards' fault, but the bottom line is that whoever's in charge of who plays on D thought it was best for Kelsay to start at LB and play the majority of snaps both in a 3-4 (where he was awful) and in a 4-3 (where he was laughably awful). That is just terrifying.

The only problem with your argument is that the previous 3 QB picks were made by the John Fox regime. Ron Rivera has no loyalty to any of those QBs, and won't be held accountable for their failures. Plus, since it's Rivera's first year on the job, he's not under a ton of pressure to win this year, so he does have the luxury of drafting for the future in 2011. If John Fox hadn't gotten fired, I think a defensive pick or AJ Green would've been a mortal lock. But under Rivera, I could see them going any direction, including QB.

I'll go with Da'Quan Bowers. I could definitely see the "we're gonna run a hybrid for now, but long-term, we're running a 3-4" Bills drafting a guy who can only play 4-3 DE, then insisting that he fits into a 3-4, then being shocked when he's not productive as a 3-4 DE, then being equally shocked when he's not productive as a 3-4 OLB. Or maybe switch those last two. I don't really want either Newton or Gabbert, but there's no way they go 1-2, and if we're going to draft a QB, I'd rather they at least get the guy they like. None of the 3 would be my first choice, but I could live with Peterson, Green, or Fairley. Fairley strikes me as a guy who could be really successful on the right team. Probably not our team, but he could pan out. Peterson looks as likely to become the next Champ Bailey/Charles Woodson/Nnamdi/Revis as any CB I can remember. That's one of the extremely hard-to-get, extremely expensive, and extremely helpful positions. Not #1 corner, lockdown corner. And Green, actually I hope we don't draft Green. Our WR corps is weak (look at our passing #s once Evans got hurt), Evans is getting old, and David Nelson/Donald Jones/Naaman Roosevelt are not the answer. But Green's kind of a knucklehead, and I just think there are other guys I'd rather have on my team. I'm hoping for Marcell Dareus. I'd be okay with Quinn or maybe Von Miller.

What changed is that Brohm wasn't cut, his contract expired. I doubt the Bills would have cut him if he had another year on his deal. But tendering Brohm (if the tenders even hold up next year) would be too expensive for a player who clearly can't cut it on your team.

People just love talking about smoke screens when it comes to the draft. Has anyone claimed that the new unis are a smoke screen yet?

Nice!! I really like Wilson, whether as a starter or a reserve. If you believe in building through the draft, it's extra critical to re-sign your own guys. Even if the RFA tender holds up, Whitner's probably gone. If Wilson went as well, we might have seen a 2nd or 3rd round pick spent on a new starting SS.

Yeah, it's a little surprising that the Pats signed him. I know our D was run by a first-time NFL D-coordinator who didn't run very good defenses in college and may have been in over his head, but Stroud still looked bad. I don't know how much of that can be attributed to poor coaching or a poor scheme. I'm not sure if Stroud is an upgrade at DE when the Pats run a 3-4. However, they've run a lot more 4-3 the last 2 years, and signing Stroud may be an indication that they intend to keep running 4-3. Keep in mind, Stroud was horribly miscast as a DE when our D switched to 4-3 last year, but he can probably still play DT in a 4-3. The Pats usually like guys who are versatile enough to fit into whatever they run, though, so maybe they think they can play Stroud at DE in the 3-4. It'll be interesting to see how he does.

Thank you. I don't get the crippling fear of losing out on the guy you've targeted. You can't tell me Spiller was the only player in last year's draft worthy of a first-round selection. Marv said similar things after drafting Whitner (he admitted they had an offer on the table, but they thought the team was trading up to get Whitner, so they said no). Now, I get it if it's one just spectacular talent that you can't believe is there. In that case, go ahead and sprint up to the podium, like Washington did when they drafted Orakpo. But if you're going to do that, you'd better be right. Washington looks smart for sprinting to draft Orakpo. Buffalo looks dumb for sprinting to draft Spiller (not to mention Troup and Carrington). And if it's just the top guy on your board, it doesn't hurt to take 5 minutes and see if the phone rings, or even make a couple of calls yourself.

Pretty sound logic, but keep in mind that Cam Newton is tall, good-looking, just won the national championship, has unbelievable upside, and every football fan in the country knows who he is. All it takes is one GM in the first round talking himself into Newton, and there's a lot to like there. And as much as the NFL is "win now", it's also "sell season tickets now", and not many draft picks will do that as well as a QB that all of your fans saw win the national championship. Gabbert may be the better prospect (or may not, I don't know), but outside of Missouri or whatever, he's not very well known amongst NFL fans. I had literally never heard of him until he declared for the draft. I'm no college football buff, but I know there's a lot of NFL fans who follow college even less than I do, and most NFL fans don't religiously read pre-draft stuff either. I'll be pretty surprised if Newton doesn't go in the first round. In fact, I'd be surprised if he lasted as long as Tebow (who I thought was a mortal lock to go in the first round, for many of the same reasons as Newton). I would be surprised if anyone else, except maybe Gabbert, goes in the first round.

Bingo. I'm very frustrated by the Bills' Steamboat Rebuild they're running. Scrapping the defense set us back at least an additional year. And on top of that, we have a GM who publicly says: 1.) We have tons of needs and not much talent. 2.) He doesn't like free agency or trades as ways to acquire talent. 3.) He doesn't like trading down to pick up additional draft picks. So the plan is to go 8-for-8 this year and next, and have 16 good new starters? How many impact players does Nix really think he's going to find in the draft? As a fan, I appreciate the front office finally acknowledging the lack of talent on the team, instead of the "we're so amazingly close to the Super Bowl" BS we heard in the Jauron Era, but I get the feeling that it's just the team telling us fans what we want to hear. Because if we're really that bad, we should have traded down in nearly every round last year, and picked up an additional 5-6 picks between last year's draft and this year's. And we should be *aggressive* in free agency, not passive. Targeting lower-priced players is fine, but don't just sign 3 of them and call it a day. You have needs all over the field. And I don't buy the "they needed last year to see what they had" argument. If they really couldn't tell what they had from watching game tape, they're not qualified to be running an NFL team. Go to college or high school if the only way you can evaluate a player is by seeing him in practice. Anyway, getting a little more directly on topic, it seems to me that Nix and Gailey both fell for the same common trap when evaluating O-lines: letting the quality of the QB influence your assessment of the line. Peyton Manning is awesome, therefore he must have an elite O-line. Trent Edwards sucks, therefore the O-line is horrible. Fitzpatrick is a lot more effective than Edwards; looks like the line is improving! I disagree. A QB (like Fitz) with pocket presence, who is willing and able to get rid of the ball quickly and/or elude pass-rushers, will always make his O-line look a lot better than a QB with no pocket presence (like Edwards). But Fitz was under pressure as much as Edwards was, he was just competent at dealing with it. Our run game regressed from 2009 to 2010, despite investing the #9 overall pick in a RB who was supposed to make our offensive linemen better somehow. (Excluding QB and P runs, 4.0 yards/carry in 2010, 4.3 in 2009.) Injuries maybe caused some of that regression, but how good were the guys who got hurt? And what are the odds they (Bell) stay healthy going forward? I would rate our line about the same now as I did last year: Bad, but not the worst in the league. Luckily, it's pretty young, so most of those guys should probably get better. But I don't think the path to the playoffs is paved with Demetrius Bell, Erik Pears, and Ed Wang as our top 3 tackles.

First off, great post! Thanks for the research! As to your questions, from the pre-draft comments, it sounds like the pick's either a DE or QB. (As long as Ralph keeps mentioning getting a QB every time he speaks, that has to be considered a frontrunner.) As much as people like to throw around the word smokescreen, Nix & Gailey's comments last year made it fairly clear that they were targeting Spiller. So far this year, there's been a lot of talk about needing 1 or 2 DEs. Plus, the Bills frequently do the move of cutting or trading the high-priced vet, then drafting his replacement in the first round. As for whether they'll pick the right one, I doubt it. It's too early to declare anyone a bust, but none of last year's top 3 picks have really shown anything yet, and 2 of those were on the D-line. Neither Troup nor Carrington showed anything last year. D-linemen frequently take a while to develop, so no judgments yet, but also no reason for confidence/faith. Out of last year's draft, only Moats showed something to suggest he's a good pick, and he didn't do that until he was moved to OLB. He was drafted to play ILB. Now, obviously some of those guys were hurt, and some others might turn it around, and that's fine. But I'm just not seeing anything (other than blind faith or extreme optimism) to suggest that Nix is the guy who will reverse the Bills' horrible draft record. Hope I'm wrong, though.