Buffalo Bills 2002 Draft

[GG]

I did check again briefly so i would be pleased to be corrected with greater specifics is I am wrong and time allows, but a short look at the DE position does not indicate that we were hoodwinked at DE at all and certainly not by Pittsburgh.

 

...

 

If one must trade up then fortunately we missed out on Philipolai but was there some other alternative to Denney who would not have cost us the trade-up?

 

....

 

 

In fact the next DE was taken until the very end of the next round wich indicates to me that none of the other guys paid to think too much about this saw a DE talent worth taking in the rest of the 2nd and almost all of the 3rd.

 

The other choices until the Bills picked again and even afterwards were:

 

Dennis Johnson KY - picked #98 by AZ- is no longer listed as a curremt player on NFL .com

Alex Brown FL- picked #104 by Chicago-

Jarvis Green - picked #126 by NE A contributor but again his 4 sacks indicate he would not be an answer to out DE quandaries.

John Taylor - picked # 134  by Detroit Not on NFL.com as being in the league.

 

All in all, i think denney did not answer our questions but I see no real mistake alternative we should have taken that reasonably could have been or would have done so.

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The strategy of moving up 8 spots to draft Denney had to have been taken in light of players already on the roster and free agent DEs still on the market in April and likely to be available in June. No one should expect to get Bruce Smith at the end of Rd. 2 and our expectations should also be in line with the draft pick.

 

Thus, Bills better had Denney rated well above the guys above to merit giving up an important pick in Rd 4, to get the guy. I generally believe that if a guy makes it to pick #61, there's probably not that much difference between him and the next guy, because everyone who needed a DE, would have gotten one by now with a lot of big names going in Rd. 1.

 

The reason I feel Donahoe got hoodwinked by Pitt is that when he found out that they were ready to pick him, he may have got the competitive juice flowing. For one, he would fill his DE need, two he would prevent Pitt from getting the DE they wanted. While it is conjecture on my part, I don't find it too far from unreasonable. But it also strikes me as a reach similar to Butler grabbing Travares Tillman in Rd 2 after the run on safeties.

 

While I won't proclaim to know better than the Bills' scouts, Denney's pre-draft rating was between 2nd & 5th rounds. I would not have minded a reach for Denney in the slot where Reed was picked (even though Reed was the "steal" of that pick) but the big issue is giving up a 4th round selection in a good draft when the team was sorely missing quality players.

[KOKBILLS]

I think you are way off.

 

Reed - Gone

Wire - Gone

Denney - ?

Bannan - Gone

Pucillo - Gone

 

Not seeing below on the roster:

 

7b.^ Rodney Wright WR Fresno State (250)

7c.^ Jarrett Ferguson FB Virginia Tech (252)

7d.^ Dominique Stevenson LB Tennessee (260)

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I'm not sure why Denny would be a question mark? I mean...I realize he's not Phil Hansen, but as a Back-up LDE he's more than adequate...I think MM likes Denny too, after all he used him on Offense a little...Bannan's Roster Spot certainly could be upgraded, but if the Bills lose Williams and Edwards, Bannan's chances of returning go WAY up...If the Coaching Staff feels Wire was a key ST's contributor, there's no real reason to cut him in the Off Season, so he'll have a decent shot at returning in a Back-Up role...

 

I doubt the Bills give up on JR either...I imagine MM and Clements still believe they can make a legit 3rd or 4th WR out of Josh...I guess we'll see...

[San-O]

The strategy of moving up 8 spots to draft Denney had to have been taken in light of players already on the roster and free agent DEs still on the market in April and likely to be available in June.  No one should expect to get Bruce Smith at the end of Rd. 2 and our expectations should also be in line with the draft pick.

 

Thus, Bills better had Denney rated well above the guys above to merit giving up an important pick in Rd 4, to get the guy.  I generally believe that if a guy makes it to pick #61, there's probably not that much difference between him and the next guy, because everyone who needed a DE, would have gotten one by now with a lot of big names going in Rd. 1.

 

The reason I feel Donahoe got hoodwinked by Pitt is that when he found out that they were ready to pick him, he may have got the competitive juice flowing.  For one, he would fill his DE need, two he would prevent Pitt from getting the DE they wanted.  While it is conjecture on my part, I don't find it too far from unreasonable.  But it also strikes me as a reach similar to Butler grabbing Travares Tillman in Rd 2 after the run on safeties. 

 

While I won't proclaim to know better than the Bills' scouts, Denney's pre-draft rating was between 2nd & 5th rounds.  I would not have minded a reach for Denney in the slot where Reed was picked (even though Reed was the "steal" of that pick) but the big issue is giving up a 4th round selection in a good draft when the team was sorely missing quality players.

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That is what I'm talking about. You simply don't reach for a guy like Denney,

trade away a pick to move up eight spots for a guy in the second round. Buffalo

was coming off a 3-13 season and correctly going through a roster purge.

 

You need as many quality value picks , best-player-available types, to have as many chances as possible to rebuild your roster with solid players.

 

Add to that Denney coming from BYU and being two years older than a normal

draftee, and you are asking for problems.

 

The draft is a game of chance, so why stack the deck against yourself?

[Pete]

Besides the Jets Pat-please name 4 teams that had a better draft then the Bills. It was a weak draft and you are being harsh!

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

That is what I'm talking about.  You simply don't reach for a guy like Denney,

trade away a pick to move up eight spots for a guy in the second round.  Buffalo

was coming off a 3-13 season and correctly going through a roster purge.

 

You need as many quality value picks , best-player-available types, to have as many chances as possible to rebuild your roster with solid players. 

 

Add to that Denney coming from BYU and being two years older than a normal

draftee, and you are asking for problems.

 

The draft is a game of chance, so why stack the deck against yourself?

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Yet, it would seem to me you would in fact make a reach for a guy like Denney if you have him as a player worth taking at that point and particularly if in addition to being the best player available you have a need at the position he plays.

 

From press accounts at the time led by the reporting of ESPN (the reports seem accurate as they were widely reported, and Pittsburgh and Denney were supposedly on the phone so the facts were easily confirmed or denied).

 

1. Reports had him gping from the 2nd through the 5th round and Pittsburgh apparently was about to take him so the pick may not have even been a reach.

2. The Bills are generally committed to taking the player they deem the best player available and had done so by taking Reed when they had no immediate need at WR. The Reed pick merely intensified the DL need which was huge for a Bills team which had gone to 4-3 after running a 3-4 and had lost 4 DL starters since 1999.

 

Again, do you or anyone else really belived that Pitt faked telling Denney they were going pick him to "hoodwink" the Bills?

 

Even if Denney had played lights out in his rookie year, the Bills still would have needed to pick Kelsay on the DL. The Bills in fact may well need to go DE in a serious way in the upcoming draft, though I would hope they would go for someone to play the Jim Jeffcoat reserve rusher in FA. We got very lucky playing things close to the edge with only 3 DEs on the active roster this year. Even if Denney were great would you have then comfortably done without Kelsay and gone with only Schobel and Denney at DE?

 

The idea that the pick of Kelsay is proof positive of Denney being a blown pick simply fails to recognize the near DL disaster created for this team by adopting the TN scheme at the worst possible time.

 

The pick of Denney certainky stunk his first year as he could not use his body and leverage well enough to even be active.

 

However, moving up to get him was dictated by necessity because of the Reed pick, scheme changes and contract issues.

 

Most important for the Bills after a disaster start, Denney's play improved enough that he got the nod at starter where he is not the rusher we want, but he gained control over his body and used his wide wingspan to help make out use of the run blitz work so have been among the top ranked Ds statistically.

 

Kelsay (or some other highly rated DL player) getting drafted almost certainly would have happened even if Denney could rush (Even if Denney could rush we still needed a back-up at LDE) and the good news is that Kelsay has shown enough that Denney who is a jack of many trades but master at none as a DL player played well enough that even though Kelsay played better, Denney allowed the Bills braintrust to play it as close to the edge as you can in terms of our DL rotation and bein prepared for a nick to a starter.

 

How were the Bills fooled into reaching for a player who was rated to go potentially in the 2nd, whom Pittsburgh was about to take, who we had a huge need for someone at his position even if he apparently wasn't about to be picked at a point many regarded as appropriate for him.

 

Most important though he struggled initially, he has allowed us to go with the absolute minimum DEs on a defense which is a statistical performer in the league an has by far been the best unit on the team compiling the last two year's results.

 

I simply don't think you make an effective case for this being a big mistake. Denney is not the LDE those of us who are use to the days of Bruce want, but he is far from a bust,

[GG]

I don't know if you meant to reply to SoCal, as most of your "logic" referred to my post.

 

Yet, it would seem to me you would in fact make a reach for a guy like Denney if you have him as a player worth taking at that point and particularly if in addition to being the best player available you have a need at the position he plays.

Note that I said I would not have minded if the Bills drafted Denney with their own Rd 2 pick. The reason I view it as a failed draft is that the Bills traded away a critical draft pick to nab a guy at spot 61, when there's very little historical evidence of Np. 61 picks being head and shoulders above No. 69.

 

Look at the 4 DEs picked after Denney - they were not rated that much lower than Denney on pre-draft charts. You would have to have made a very persuasive argument of why there was a need to trade up to nab Denney and give up a critical draft choice for a rebuilding team.

 

Again, do you or anyone else really belived that Pitt faked telling Denney they were going pick him to "hoodwink" the Bills?

Read what I wrote. Pitt didn't fake taking Denney, they wanted the guy. TD got hoodwinked into trading because I believe it's likely he wanted to prevent Pitt from taking him.

 

If TD is a great pocker player, I would like to see the Bills draft board and see if they had Denney rated equal to the remaining DEs + the high 4th rounder they gave up. I have a hard time believing that any draft board would have had the cards lined up favorably for that trade.

 

Even if Denney had played lights out in his rookie year, the Bills still would have needed to pick Kelsay on the DL.

And was does Kelsay have to do with the discussion of the 2002 draft?

 

I simply don't think you make an effective case for this being a big mistake.  Denney is not the LDE those of us who are use to the days of Bruce want, but he is far from a bust,

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Perhaps if you take time to read the posts, instead of writing, you may see the case.

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

I don't know if you meant to reply to SoCal, as most of your "logic" referred to my post.

Note that I said I would not have minded if the Bills drafted Denney with their own Rd 2 pick.  The reason I view it as a failed draft is that the Bills traded away a critical draft pick to nab a guy at spot 61, when there's very little historical evidence of Np. 61 picks being head and shoulders above No. 69. 

 

Look at the 4 DEs picked after Denney - they were not rated that much lower than Denney on pre-draft charts.  You would have to have made a very persuasive argument of why there was a need to trade up to nab Denney and give up a critical draft choice for a rebuilding team.

Read what I wrote.  Pitt didn't fake taking Denney, they wanted the guy.  TD got hoodwinked into trading because I believe it's likely he wanted to prevent Pitt from taking him. 

 

If TD is a great pocker player, I would like to see the Bills draft board and see if they had Denney rated equal to the remaining DEs + the high 4th rounder they gave up.  I have a hard time believing that any draft board would have had the cards lined up favorably for that trade. 

And was does Kelsay have to do with the discussion of the 2002 draft? 

Perhaps if you take time to read the posts, instead of writing, you may see the case.

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Sorry for any confusion. I was actually posting in response to elements of both posts which co-incide in some ideas but do have two different authors and ideas drving them. I was lazy in my own regard in responding to both in one message and will try to distinguish the ideas as I seek clarity on what is an impossible to know for sure situation given our lack of crtiical pieces of info.

 

However, of import to this I would say:

 

1. I think its important not to be too much of a slave to an assignment of value to a particular player taken in a particular draft position in a particular draft. Each draft is its own market and the supply and demand for particular players at particular positions simply creates to much variability to assign more than a general equivalence to two players taken at the same spot in different markets.

 

Specifically, in examples like one often cited by our good friend ICE, he claimed that a 1st round pick needed to be played right away so he could learn to produce right away because of the value of 1st round picks.

 

I would say this view is falt-out wrong because it makes the incorrect assumption of some equivalence between for example a QB like Pennington taken in the 20s one year and a QB like Losman taken in virtually the same slot in a different year.

 

For a individual team the player is the player and this investment will and should be developed based on the reality that the team confronts and not some hidebound assignment of an absolute value to that player based on his draft position. It simply makes too big of a difference in terms of a rationale development program how factors such as; how is the starter ahead of him playing or assessessed (Testaverde v. Bledsoe), will the team have a shot at winning that year (BUF v. NYJ), how many draft choices did the team have that year (Pennington was the 3rd or 4th of 1st round choices the Jets had that year), etc. etc. and a bunch of different factors.

 

I think this lesson actually applies even more forcefully to a #61 pick than a first rounder as not only does the market and thus the development and production expectations vary from year to year but they actually can be enough picks made to that point to casue these expectations to vary greatly within the very same draft.

 

An example of this is close to home in consideration of the selection and development expectations for the Bills and Chris Kelsay. He was chosen #48 by the Bills in this draft, so are should his level of play for this pick be that of a player like Bucky Brooks who also was taken at this point? Should it be for a second rounder (we hope he starts soon), should it be at the level of the 8 or 9th DL player chosen which he was. Whatever, as these facts are all interesting but he is expected to actually develop like we decide this individual should develop. For us, this was driven by our sense that Kelsay actually had talent which in the past had been equivalent to that shown by many first round DE choices.

 

Further, TD read the market well enough to see that the 1/3 or so of NFL teams which could make a draft allocation for a DL player had already done so for one of the first 8 or 9 DL players chosen. The Bills had a screaming need for an LDE because a number of things had not played out like we wished in termsof Denney's 1st year, the switch to the 4-3, Marcus Jone's rehab. etc.

 

He took WM in the 20s with the full expectation and the eventual reality that this first round choice would contribute nothing on the field the year he was drafted. he took Kelsay with pick 48 even though he had him rated as a top 30 talent. it all worked out incredibly well.

 

The lesson from this is that your (and So-Cal's) too rigid assignment to Denney of a demand of development speed, achievement, or importance to the team is not the most accurate way to make these judgments from my perspective.

 

Was Denney a bad choice because as #61 he deserved to be inactive much of his first season? Was Denney a successful choice because he actually started his second season at LDE on a team which statistically was one of the best Ds in the league? Is there some absolute expectation which allows Denney to be reasonably declared a bust or a success?

 

In my mind, the keys are these:

 

1. In general you want to pick the best player available with the draft but strongly skew this choice if there is a specific need for a player which helps your team reach the ultimate goal of racking up Ws.

2. Denney was a player judged by many outside observers as probably being a 2nd-5th round choice in terms of likely production.

3. The Bills had a goshawful need on our DL primarily due to the shift from the 3-4 to the 4-3 and this need was exacerbated by the market costing us Wiley, Big Ted, Hansen and Bruce in short order.

4. This need was even further exacerbated by us reasonably using our first two choices on MW and Reed.

 

Our actions were simply dicatated in the real world by Pitts being on the phone to pick Denney (testimony that someone else paid to pay too much attention this judged him as meriting a #62 pick. Moving up to pick him has been confirmed as the correct choice by no other DE meriting selection unitl the very end of the 3rd round.

 

The correctness of the choice of Denney over other reasonable options is further shown by the other DEs picked after himand before or around our next choice either not even making in the league or at worst producing at essentially the same level as Denney.

 

Most important for the Bills in the real world, Denney has in fact played an essentail role on out D as we only have 3 DEs on the roster and this D has been not good enough to deliver us playoff achieving Ws with our O and ST, but a high-performing unit nonetheless.

 

Has enney disappointed? No doubt. I.m a Bills fan I am disappointed when every player regardless of how he was acquired does not produce like Bruce Smith.

 

Is it reasonable at all to be disappointed in him? Yes, to a point, but its a pretty short point. When he couldn't even be activated it was pretty reasonable to be disappointed with him.

 

However, pnce he improved his production enough to be the starting LDE on a squad which achieved a top3 in the conference statistical ranking of D performance I think it departs reality to be disappointed in the output of this #61 pick.

 

He ain't nearly what we want, but having your third choice in a draft end up as a solid back-up in his third year (after starting his second year) at a position you are incredibly undermanned in who allows you to escape with having the two starters and a back-up for both posuitions br your allocation for the three slots, I think we have done pretty well.

 

Or something like that.