Lost Opportunities

[shoretalk]

Nice try with the cloaked Peter Pan link but I won't click. And I know more about baseball than you've forgotten.

 

Anyway, you may have watched too much Star Trek if you think his name is Torborg.

Ok, so now we have gotten into baseball inaccuracies ... it is JEFF TORBORG http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/pl...php?p=torboje01

 

As for our #1's ... we aren't the only team to have screwed up on making draft day picks in ROUND ONE ...

 

But, I do believe that McCargo will be amongst the earliest cuts this summer ... we should have known better with that one.

 

As much as I don't like the character that Lynch has become, I am hopeful that he will return to BEAST mode with the new coaching and be a contributor to the team and possibly trade bait for a contending team that loses a running back early in the season.

 

This board is much too harch on Whitner. He is not the glamour guy in the backfield but he plays all the DB positions well enough to merit being called 'above average.' He has had to constantly adjust according to the injuries and coaching schemes we have used. He it not going to get the interceptions of a BYRD but he has been a solid player plus one of the few players who have been willing to at least attempt to create some team spirit.

 

McKelvin showed glimpses of promise his rookie year and so he made a glaring mistake last year but the position he plays showcases mistakes as well as successes. It is beginning to look like he is going to be the nickle back this year but his attitude seems right and hopefully his talent will rise to the occasion.

 

Mr. May-Be - Ok, so the most he has shown us so far is that he can party with strippers, tweat with the best of them and hit one his team's best players in the back when the play is long over. Even though I am with WOOD in screaming about this guy not earning his money ... there is a chance that this new defensive scheme might be perfect for this light-weight. I am not overly confident but there is always hope.

 

What all of this first round nonsense proves is that there needs to be a rookie pay scale that locks first rounders to a set pay level until they prove themselves. These kids do not deserve to be paid more than what the successful players at their position are being paid.

 

And, again ... for you non-baseball fans attempting to be baseball experts ... his name is JEFF TORBORG (nothing related to Star Trek)!

[LABills08]

Ok, so now we have gotten into baseball inaccuracies ... it is JEFF TORBORG http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/pl...php?p=torboje01

 

As for our #1's ... we aren't the only team to have screwed up on making draft day picks in ROUND ONE ...

 

But, I do believe that McCargo will be amongst the earliest cuts this summer ... we should have known better with that one.

 

As much as I don't like the character that Lynch has become, I am hopeful that he will return to BEAST mode with the new coaching and be a contributor to the team and possibly trade bait for a contending team that loses a running back early in the season.

 

This board is much too harch on Whitner. He is not the glamour guy in the backfield but he plays all the DB positions well enough to merit being called 'above average.' He has had to constantly adjust according to the injuries and coaching schemes we have used. He it not going to get the interceptions of a BYRD but he has been a solid player plus one of the few players who have been willing to at least attempt to create some team spirit.

 

McKelvin showed glimpses of promise his rookie year and so he made a glaring mistake last year but the position he plays showcases mistakes as well as successes. It is beginning to look like he is going to be the nickle back this year but his attitude seems right and hopefully his talent will rise to the occasion.

 

Mr. May-Be - Ok, so the most he has shown us so far is that he can party with strippers, tweat with the best of them and hit one his team's best players in the back when the play is long over. Even though I am with WOOD in screaming about this guy not earning his money ... there is a chance that this new defensive scheme might be perfect for this light-weight. I am not overly confident but there is always hope.

 

What all of this first round nonsense proves is that there needs to be a rookie pay scale that locks first rounders to a set pay level until they prove themselves. These kids do not deserve to be paid more than what the successful players at their position are being paid.

 

And, again ... for you non-baseball fans attempting to be baseball experts ... his name is JEFF TORBORG (nothing related to Star Trek)!

 

McKelvin will be starting over Florence. Florence will be nickel back.

[ieatcrayonz]

Ok, so now we have gotten into baseball inaccuracies ... it is JEFF TORBORG http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/pl...php?p=torboje01

 

 

And, again ... for you non-baseball fans attempting to be baseball experts ... his name is JEFF TORBORG (nothing related to Star Trek)!

Holy crap dude I already said forget about the Peter Pan links. I won't click.

 

And forget it about Jeff Torbor anyway. I know a lot about baseball history and remember him well. There is not much point to the whole thing because the odds of him trying out for the Bills are very small even if he could beat out Maybinot.

[John from Riverside]

There is no question that the 1st round picks of this team have not been what they should be......

 

I will throw this out there as well.....when we get PAST the first round we have done pretty well with the players we have picked......and that has caused us to be a AVERAGE team rather then a really bad one.....

 

I wonder how this team would look had we had some REALLY bad seasons and gotten some top 5 pick guys on this team?

 

Just curious as to what people think about hthat

[Doc]

"Come out upon my seas

Cursed missed opportunities

Am I a part of the cure?

Or am I part of the disease?"

[Hplarrm]

This whole thread strikes me as looking at the easy part (duh, the Bills draft leaders over the past 5 year and actually one can easily expand the time since the results are 0-for the playoffs in the past decade)> Is there anyone out there who wants to make the case that our draft results are good for the past 5 years or decade?

 

Oh please.

 

The actual interesting question is what do you do about it with the players still on your team and of course the pretty impossible to answer question right now since Gailey is new on he scene what do you do about it in the future. The future question has to intelligently wait until at least we begin to see some real world results which will give us at least a sense of whether we are talking a top 5 pick or a middlin first rounder in the 2011 draft (I think unfortunately those are the realistic parameters though one can lead that fantasy argument if you want).

 

In addition, before we get too hot in the pants about arguing about the 2011 draft I think we need to see at least a little of the real world 2010 college season, so I am willing to forgo the future draft argument for a few months and one can more reasonably turn attention to what should the coaching braintrust do right now with draftees still ion the roster and what do we fans think the prospects are for these players:

 

IMHO they are:

 

The following draft synopsis is as sort of complete as I can get it of guys currently on the roster playing key roles

 

Aaron Schobel- worth mentioning because I think he is gonna be around. Like it or not a legit Pro Bowler talent who has simply both produced glitzy numbers at some points in high blown overemphasized areas like sacks and also has simply been around a long time. In that lengthy career he has shown the ability to produce good #s like consistent around double digit sack #s and has actually improved his game as he has both increased his strength and learned how to use it better at the point of attack (it was downright embarassing watching sometimes get pancaked as a rookie but this does not happen much as he has gained experience). The most impressive thing to me about his career is that the has improved his strength while at the same time tapering his weight and showing the athleticism to master the DL zone blitz role and do pass coverage in the short and middle zone.

 

I think this is important because his future helping this team is gonna be as an OLB, There is potential if his health holds out that he has demonstrated the physical capability, skill, and determination as his play has always featured his determination rather than a dramatic first move. I think he has potential to actually be an outstanding OLB for us. One problem has always been that Schobel has always been very intelligent about doing whats right first and foremost for Aaron and has not always sacrificed himself at least contractually for the team (Schobel was Jason Peters refusing to attend voluntary OTA before Peters was Peters- the current retirement drama is not surprising).

 

However, I hope he comes back and I think he will and I think he potentially could be outstanding. TD actually did well in the draft where he chose Clements, Pro Bowl making idiot Henry and Schobel on the first day.

 

McGee- Arguably the best CB on this team and a legit Pro Bowler back in the day as a return guy. His pick was a real winner for a second day guy but in conjunction with the Mike Williams disaster which TD also oversaw it shows how much a crapshoot the draft really is but I think it is pretty clear the Bills ride the McGee horse as hard as they can and feel good that there are some well regarded CBs behind him targeted to replace him which though he is still solid is gonna have to happen likely sooner rather than later.

 

Kelsau- Overpaid. Shifted to OLB after we abandoned the 4-3 as this unit with Kelsay in a central role simply underperformed what one hopes for from the DL. I think he was an OK pick as he has been a reasonable player, but the massive extension he received was way too much $ for his level of output. I have little belief that we will see much out of him with the forced switch to OLB. FO did fine drafting him but messed up badly with the extension amount.

 

Evans- There seems little reason as a player why he should not be the Bills lock for the Pro Bowl #1 WR. However, the fact that he is not even an alternate Pro Bowler despite his speed, demonstrated ability to track and catch the long ball, and a willingness and even some demonstrated ability to make a circus catch in over the middle traffic there is little better testimony that the problems have been with the poor offensive structure and QB performance issues.

 

The problem is that the clock is ticking and Evans has also demonstrated that unless there is a another WR at the #2 who can attract attention that he can be neutralized and not be a force. Unfortunately, it appears we will be fortunate to see any of the candidates for #2 WR, Johnson, Hardy, Parrish, or Easley perform even up to the standard of the getting old Peerless Price we had at #2 with Evans a couple of years back. Clearly the old PP had his deficits due to age and injury, but I would rather have a has been like PP at #2 rather than a never was like any of our 4 candidates. None of these 4 has EVER performed at a #2 NFL WR level before and even worse the most promising candidate of the bunch Jackson actually took significant statistical steps backward in his second year. Stats do not dictate performance (fortunately) but they are not an easily ignored indicator either.

 

If I were Gailey (which thankfully for us all I am not) I would actually take the bad option of trying Spiller as my #2 WR over what I see as the worse options of calling on 4 guys who have no sign of being a #2 in real games as my option. However, the thing that worries me about the growing Spiller holdout is that if we were gonna pull off the hail Mary of having him line up wide consistently in order to create horrible match-up problems for the SC every moment of practice time is critical.

 

Good draft pick but lousy coaching is the problem here.

 

Parrish- A weird year as the Bills had no #1 (you could simply label Losman as the #1 pick since they traded away the 2006 pick to step up and get him in 2005. Again Parrish has not been a bad player in that he deserved the pro Bowl nod he received for being a very good to approaching great return guy, Add to his resume that he really has shown more ability to be a gamer and play well in the middle of the field than we should expect given his smurf like size and initial injury. I like Parrish as a #3 but we are asking too much to demand he perform as a #2. When you add to that Jauron was never able to make his O work as a scheme (firing Turk a couple of weeks before the season was actually his highlight) and again though the drafting has been hit and miss (like all drafting is at worst the Bills miss a bit more than the norm but not extraordinarily so given the crapshoot the draft is and the probs are even more likely to be the training rather than the scouting IMHO)

 

Lynch- On field great. Off field an idiot. In the ned, you pay the GM and the draft team the big bucks to shake every potential top 10 picks hand and look him in the eye and assess whether he not only has the moves but the character to be a top 10 pick. The FO blew this one.

 

However, reality does say that a mistake was made here as you observe, but actually it was a dumb mistake rather than simply a horrible stupid one for which there is no redemption. I would have been quite pleased and it would have made sense to me if the Bills simply traded Lynch away for something anything. However, IF Gailey has a plan for actually using two RBs (Jackson and Lynch) simultaneously AND then also has a O scheme which gets high priced draftee Spiller a significant amount of touches then keeping Lynch MAY be a very workable idea. I am not sure what that is (using Spiller as the #2 WR as much as possible strikes me as one unorthodox way of doing this- though it would be weird). Still there is a bottom line that on the field Lynch has not been a bust and on the contrary since he even slimed into the Pro Bowl once he is even a good on the field pick. However, his off field antics have been so numerous and even led to a suspension which took him off the field he is an OK but in a serious way flawed pick by the FO.

 

This is a fun review for me to do but has been waiting unsent for a while so I will send what I got an try to get back to this as part of educating myself. Thanks for starting the thread even though the big problem to me is not bad picking but bad training and management of picks which were reasonable in an of themselves.

 

 

 

I am the first to acknowledge that it isn't reasonable to expect every first round draft choice to blossom into

a star player. It isn't just the Bills, every team has misses early. However, the Bills have had several big

misses in the recent past that help explain why the team is re-building continuously.

 

I know that it is early in camp and we can hope that the following guys start to live up to their draft

status, but for most of them, they've been around long enough that I expect we've seen their best.

 

I know that I could go back further, but we don't need to:

 

1. John McCargo - taken late in round 1 has shown an occasional flash of quickness to knife into the

backfield, but he' played very little and is in danger of not making the team at all this year.

 

2. Donte Whitner - 8th overall pick should be at least a good starter, if not an impact player. Whitner

is struggling to even be a starter on a weak defense. He hasn't been as bad as some other players

chosen in the same neighborhood (Jason Allen, Ernie Sims, Matt Leinart), but they need more from him

than to be "competing" to be the starter with the likes of Bryan Scott and ex-WR George Wilson.

 

3. Marshawn Lynch - there were red-flags on this guy's character coming into the draft, but the Bills'

ignored them and he's been in trouble more than he's be productive. He has some talent, but does

he want to play enough? Likely, 3rd back in the rotation - not good enough for as high as he was picked.

In fairness to the Bills, there were a lot of flops in that first round, but super-star CB Darrelle Revis was

selected 2 picks after Lynch.

 

4. Leodis McKelvin - I think he is the most likely of this group to improve his production, but the Bills need

more out of a high number 1 pick than to be a nickel back. They could have had a great LT, if they had

chosen Ryan Clady - ouch!

 

5. Aaron Maybin - Maybin has shown nothing so far and now he is running with the 2nd team defense even

though a job is wide open with the loss of Schobel and he's behind Chris Kelsay and Jeff(?) freaking Torbor?