Draft - big picture

[OldTimer1960]

In the big picture, I think the Bills addressed many of their biggest needs. They clearly didn't have

enough high picks to address all of their needs, so necessarily some went unmet (OT and QB). I think

that the focus on defense make sense even in light of the needs on the OL. The Bills were abysmal

in stopping the run last year and would never be much good until they can shore that up. I think that

if the run defense has been improved with the addition of Troup and Carrington and the conversion to

3-4, that will give the secondary even more chances to shine.

 

The offense got little help other than Spiller, but he may help a great deal. With the group of QBs they

have, they need to be a run-first offense mixing in some play-action passes. They probably didn't find

an upgrade at LT nor did they find a QB to compete for the starters job (at least this year), but you

can't fix it all this year. In my mind, Spiller the RB has a better chance to make a major impact as

a rookie than any of the rookie QBs would have.

 

In round 1, the Bills got a concensus top-rated offensive playmaker in Spiller.

 

They had their choice of all of the NTs (except Dan Williams) in round 2 and they obviously preferred

Torell Troup to the other candidates including Cody, Linval Joseph and a name I heard here a lot: Cam Thomas.

Just because the draft prognosticators didn't have Troup rated above those guys, it doesn't mean he can't

play. Look at how highly Cam Thomas was rated by some and he didn't go until the 5th or 6th round.

 

In round 3, they got a big DE that they feel can be part of a rotation at DE this year and hopefully grow

into a starter eventually.

 

Round 4 brought an athelete with not a lot of starting WR experience and only 1 year of production. However,

in the 4th to take a chance on a 6'2 3/4" 210 pounder with 4.42 speed seems reasonable.

 

I am sure that we'd have all preferred that they take an OT before the 5th round, but they clearly knew

that T was a need, but apparently felt that either defense was a bigger need or that those defensive

players were better than the options available at OT.

 

A couple of DL-to-LB conversions from small schools were the remaining picks. Arthur Moats sounds quite

interesting from what I've been able to read about him.

 

I am reasonably happy with the draft. It feels good to have two scouts like Nix and Modrak running the draft.

Last year's draft looks to have been excellent with a chance to get better if Maybin improves with a full offseason

and training camp. Let's hope that this draft continues that trend.

[DUTE]

i agree the last 2 drafts seem to be solid so far with nix being involved. But just imagine how much better this team would be if we had oher instead of maybin