I am the first to admit when I may be wrong (RT 1st Round)

[Luxy312]

I like Trent Murphy a lot. He could be the Hansen to Mario's Bruce. He has a "high motor."

 

My only problem with Murphy is that he's undersized. Kind of a tweener for DE. To boot, the Bills already have 2 guys just like that in Hughes and Lawson.

[NoSaint]

 

 

My only problem with Murphy is that he's undersized. Kind of a tweener for DE. To boot, the Bills already have 2 guys just like that in Hughes and Lawson.

 

at 260 lbs hes close to what i think we will be looking for size wise. thats about the same as hughes (though a taller thinner build), but were talking 20 lbs heavier than lawson

[Bill from NYC]

I'm sure a 1,000 yard and 8td season by a 3rd round rookie wr didn't help at all either.

 

C'mon CB. Everything helps.

 

Did you call for patience in another thread or was that someone else? Fluker did as much and more as one would have a right to expect from a rookie OT. If he stays healthy, he will only get better. If Fluker was the RT for the Bills, Spiller might even be able to pick up a first down on 3rd and 2.

I mean.....it's possible.

[OldTimer1960]

Exactly!! You need to use top 10 picks on the people that are hard to get otherwise (LT, QB, pass rush, elite skill players).

 

Their were tons of players available this year at those easier to fill positions including the elite players (Byrd, Ward, Strief, Asamoah, Spikes, etc...).

 

Other than Byrd, I think your use of elite is a big stretch.

[K D]

I have absolutely no doubt that our pick will be a T and that is fine. If it's anything else I will be shocked. It makes me feel better that they are saying the top 3 tackles all grade higher than the guys from last year who went 1 and 2 overall

[Kirby Jackson]

 

 

Other than Byrd, I think your use of elite is a big stretch.

Ward was a pro bowler and Strief graded out as the top RT in football last year.

[OldTimer1960]

True about Ward, but if the argument is true that S really isn't very important, I could argue "so what?" - someone has to be the Pro Bowl S. Looking back at the arguments about no RT is worth the 9th pick, this argument is not making sense (though I could be missing your point)....

[Kirby Jackson]

True about Ward, but if the argument is true that S really isn't very important, I could argue "so what?" - someone has to be the Pro Bowl S. Looking back at the arguments about no RT is worth the 9th pick, this argument is not making sense (though I could be missing your point)....

That is kind of my point. The best S in the league may be a Pro Bowler but not worth the 9th pick. That is kind of the point with RT. Someone has to be the top RT, last year Strief graded out as the top guy. Does that mean that I would trade 9 for him? No, but it doesn't mean tht he isn't a good player. The difference in importance between the top WR for example (Calvin Johnson) and the top ranked RT (pick your guy) is enormous. Edited April 22, 2014 by Kirby Jackson

[Doc]

Never mind that Strief was the 210th pick of the 2006 NFL draft.

[OldTimer1960]

That is kind of my point. The best S in the league may be a Pro Bowler but not worth the 9th pick. That is kind of the point with RT. Someone has to be the top RT, last year Strief graded out as the top guy. Does that mean that I would trade 9 for him? No, but it doesn't mean tht he isn't a good player. The difference in importance between the top WR for example (Calvin Johnson) and the top ranked RT (pick your guy) is enormous.

 

But that difference isn't so big between top LT and top WR, is that right so far? So could you not have two LT caliber players (one plying the right side)? Isn't that very similar to having two top level WRs or two top CBs? Nobody thought the Jets were stupid when they had Cromartie and Revis. Who is saying Detroit would be stupid to draft another WR in round 1 to pair with Calvin Johnson?

 

Now, to be clear, I am not so much int the camp arguing that the Bills should pick a RT at 9. I wouldn't draft a pure RT at 9, nor would I want a "number 2" WR or CB at that same spot. But, if getting another LT caliber OT or another "number 1" WR or CB, then by all means consider that strongly.

 

Taking the no RT logic to the extreme, let's say a team gets their QB IN round 1 and lucks out and gets their LT in round two in year one of a rebuild. The next year they get their #1 WR and in year 3 they hit on a top DE and #1 CB. If those are the "premium" positions, it sounds like the argument is that they should trade out of round 1 in year 4 since they have their 1st round worthy positions filled.

 

 

[Kirby Jackson]

 

 

But that difference isn't so big between top LT and top WR, is that right so far? So could you not have two LT caliber players (one plying the right side)? Isn't that very similar to having two top level WRs or two top CBs? Nobody thought the Jets were stupid when they had Cromartie and Revis. Who is saying Detroit would be stupid to draft another WR in round 1 to pair with Calvin Johnson?

 

Now, to be clear, I am not so much int the camp arguing that the Bills should pick a RT at 9. I wouldn't draft a pure RT at 9, nor would I want a "number 2" WR or CB at that same spot. But, if getting another LT caliber OT or another "number 1" WR or CB, then by all means consider that strongly.

 

Taking the no RT logic to the extreme, let's say a team gets their QB IN round 1 and lucks out and gets their LT in round two in year one of a rebuild. The next year they get their #1 WR and in year 3 they hit on a top DE and #1 CB. If those are the "premium" positions, it sounds like the argument is that they should trade out of round 1 in year 4 since they have their 1st round worthy positions filled.

I am arguing that if you have LT addressed you don't need to expend LT resources to get a guy to play RT. LT & RT are not the same. WR you can have 2 like Jones and White that are the same. You could pay them the exact same amount an no one would question it. The money difference between LT & RT has been covered in here but a good LT requires twice the resources of a good RT. In addition, as I mentioned earlier certain positions are more likely to hit FA than others. You can find the bet RT in the league on the FA market (it happened this yer) but you will never sign Calvin Johnson in FA. I am in favor of targeting the RT in round 2.

 

If you have a top 10 pick I believe that you draft BPA at a premium position or trade out (depending on value). Pass rusher or an elite WR should be the target at 9 if the value is there (Mack, Clowney, Watkins, Evans). It doesn't appear that will be the case so you should either go up and get one or go back and get an additional piece.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Kirby Jackson

[Thurman#1]

But even Davis who many around here would point to as the best of the best at RT is valued by the niners at 6m per year.... Stevie gets paid more, levitre and Byrd got way more, Glenn's about to get closer to double that.

 

 

When the 15th(?)-25th(?) (not trying to start an argument so I left the range pretty wide- doesnt change the point) best WR is paid better than a top 5 RT, it shows you how little the value has really changed so far.

 

 

I'm not arguing that QB, WR, CB, pass rush specialist or LT are valued less than RT. You're right, they're not.

 

But that's beside the point. Plenty of very good teams draft RTs in the first, especially if the RT is the BPA. And plenty of players at positions valued lower than RT also get picked in the first, safeties, guards, LBs who aren't pass rush specialists, etc.

 

I'm only saying that the people who think that because RT is valued lower than some other positions that you can't pick one in the first are wrong.

 

The 49ers paid Davis because they had a 2nd round pick playing QB on his rookie salary. It is the same thing that is going on in Seattle (even though they just let their RT walk). Once these QBs are due their extensions you will see these teams making tough decisions at certain positions. The positions will be the ones that you can plug inexpensive players in and get serviceable play (RT, OG, S, run stuffing LB, RB).

 

 

The Niners did it because their QB is cheap? By that logic, the Packers, who picked first round tackles two years in a row, must also have a cheap QB.

 

It's just not true. In fact, when you have a QB who's good and has a future, protecting him well with good tackles becomes even more important. Kaepernick, Wilson and Rodgers are among the most valuable QBs in the league, salary aside. That's why they're being protected with expensive tackles.

[Kirby Jackson]

 

The Niners did it because their QB is cheap? By that logic, the Packers, who picked first round tackles two years in a row, must also have a cheap QB.

 

It's just not true. In fact, when you have a QB who's good and has a future, protecting him well with good tackles becomes even more important. Kaepernick, Wilson and Rodgers are among the most valuable QBs in the league, salary aside. That's why they're being protected with expensive tackles.

I didn't realize that the Packers signed their tackles to significant extensions. I was under the impression that they were playing on their rookie deals. If not, I stand corrected.

[Doc]

It's just not true. In fact, when you have a QB who's good and has a future, protecting him well with good tackles becomes even more important. Kaepernick, Wilson and Rodgers are among the most valuable QBs in the league, salary aside. That's why they're being protected with expensive tackles.

Wilson's and Kaep's OT's were drafted several years before they arrived/started there. And take a look at who Rodgers' OT's were last year (hint, it wasn't either of their 2-1st round OT picks).

 

I didn't realize that the Packers signed their tackles to significant extensions. I was under the impression that they were playing on their rookie deals. If not, I stand corrected.

Both are still on their rookie deals. And I'd bet neither gets re-signed, Sherrod for sure.

[Thurman#1]

Wilson's and Kaep's OT's were drafted several years before they arrived/started there. And take a look at who Rodgers' OT's were last year (hint, it wasn't either of their 2-1st round OT picks).

 

 

Both [Packers OTs] are still on their rookie deals. And I'd bet neither gets re-signed, Sherrod for sure.

 

 

Beside the point.

 

Are we discussing whether the Bills should sign their first round RT pick to a second contract or whether good smart teams draft guys they expect to play RT in the first round? The Pack drafted two tackles in a row in the first. They expected at least one to end up at RT. Unfortunately for them, they've had problems with injuries and perhaps with making bad picks, but that's beside the point. The Pack have a very very smart front office and they picked a tackle in the first round two years in a row.

 

As for Wilson and Kaep being drafted after their tackles, again, beside the point.

 

We are talking about whether RTs can make good first round picks, and whether good teams use first round picks on RTs. Both teams have excellent FOs. The Niners just extended their RT, showing that they think he was a good pick and that they want him on the team even at the second-highest RT salary in the league. The Seahawks - another terrific front office, obviously - picked Carpenter to play RT under this regime, the one that won a title, and they picked him when they already knew they had a terrific LT in Okung on the roster.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Thurman#1

[Doc]

Beside the point.

 

Are we discussing whether the Bills should sign their first round RT pick to a second contract or whether good smart teams draft guys they expect to play RT in the first round? The Pack drafted two tackles in a row in the first. They expected at least one to end up at RT. Unfortunately for them, they've had problems with injuries and perhaps with making bad picks, but that's beside the point. The Pack have a very very smart front office and they picked a tackle in the first round two years in a row.

 

As for Wilson and Kaep being drafted after their tackles, again, beside the point.

 

We are talking about whether RTs can make good first round picks, and whether good teams use first round picks on RTs. Both teams have excellent FOs. The Niners just extended their RT, showing that they think he was a good pick and that they want him on the team even at the second-highest RT salary in the league. The Seahawks - another terrific front office, obviously - picked Carpenter to play RT under this regime, the one that won a title, and they picked him when they already knew they had a terrific LT in Okung on the roster.

The Pack drafted Bulaga to play LT, realized he was only suited to play RT, and then drafted Sherrod to play LT. He could play neither. The Seahawks picked Carpenter after Okung, hoping he'd be their starting RT. But instead a 5th round pick ended up being their starter and they won a SB with him. The 49'ers though drafted Davis after Staley and extended Davis. So that's one team that did it and succeeded. While the vast majority of other teams have non-1st rounders starting at RT. Heck I'd bet most are from the 3rd round and beyond.

[Kirby Jackson]

 

 

 

Beside the point.

 

Are we discussing whether the Bills should sign their first round RT pick to a second contract or whether good smart teams draft guys they expect to play RT in the first round? The Pack drafted two tackles in a row in the first. They expected at least one to end up at RT. Unfortunately for them, they've had problems with injuries and perhaps with making bad picks, but that's beside the point. The Pack have a very very smart front office and they picked a tackle in the first round two years in a row.

 

As for Wilson and Kaep being drafted after their tackles, again, beside the point.

 

We are talking about whether RTs can make good first round picks, and whether good teams use first round picks on RTs. Both teams have excellent FOs. The Niners just extended their RT, showing that they think he was a good pick and that they want him on the team even at the second-highest RT salary in the league. The Seahawks - another terrific front office, obviously - picked Carpenter to play RT under this regime, the one that won a title, and they picked him when they already knew they had a terrific LT in Okung on the roster.

We've got all sorts of things going on here:

-The 2 1st round picks that GB has used on OT have been nowhere near as good as their starting LT (a 4th round pick). I don't remember their line being that good but I could be wrong.

 

-Carpenter has been moved to guard because he couldn't play tackle.

 

-The point that I was making in Davis had nothing to do with draft position vs. when his QB was drafted. The point was that if you have a QB on a rookie contract you can afford to spend more in other areas. When your QB starts making $18M a year than you don't see a RT making what Davis currently does. That is a position that you can replace with a smaller investment.

 

-Lastly, picking a RT at 25 or so is a lot different than picking a RT at 9.

[Thurman#1]

The 49ers were not a good team when they drafted Davis. They hadn't made the playoffs in a long time, went 8-8 the year before, and then went 6-10 the first year with Davis. It wasn't until the got the best coach in the NFL (IMO) to join their team that they improved.

 

 

Are we a good team?

 

The question is whether Davis was a good pick (he was) and whether good FOs draft RTs in the first (the Niners FO has been consistently building that team for close to a decade, consistently improving. They're a very smart group. Not perfect, obviously, as promoting Singletary was obviously the wrong move. Singletary held that team back, but the Niners didn't rebuild. Far from it. They re-loaded. That roster was stacked, and Davis was very much part of that).

 

 

Bryan Bulaga was drafted #23, not #9. Huge difference. And he has started 33 games in 4 years.

 

Whether they made a good pick is beside the point. The point is that a very good organization, when they believed that RT was the BPA or at least the BPA at a position of need, picked the RT in the first. The difference between 23rd and 9th is again beside the point. Both are in the first, and if you think that an RT is the BPA there, even good teams make the decision to pull the trigger.

 

 

I'm gearing up for a RT at #9 and hope it works out. But I hate it. There are a ton of 1st round bust LTs and it is extremely rare to draft a RT that high. Everything being equal, you go with a playmaker. They are rarer to find and OTs can be found later in the draft. RT at #9 equals major bonerkiller.

 

Agreed. He probably will be a solid RT but he was hardly dominant this year. I thin khe would be an awful LT. The one thing I can somewhat tolerate about a RT at #9 is the ability to shift to LT as Glenn insurance. But IMO, Lewan isn't good insurance. His best case is Joe Runyan, a solid but not special OT.

 

Oh, hey, I don't go to sleep dreaming of RTs. I wish we'd lost a game or two more last year and had a shot at Mack or Watkins. But we almost certainly don't. And frankly, you rarely have a shot at one of the real blue-chippers and obvious impact players at #9. I was rooting for the Bills to lose games down the stretch. They didn't. That leaves us in the current situation.

 

IMHO, #9 picks are good, they're better than #10s and significantly better than #20s, but the main fault line up that high is between the four to six or so absolute bluechippers you seem to see every year and everybody else. We fall below that line, unfortunately. I think people tend to overestimate what we have here with a number nine. You hope to get a JJ Watt or someone like him but generally you get a guy who is a first-year starter but may or may not ever be really good.

 

Again, in that list of #9s drafted after 2000, yeah, I would trade most of those guys for Anthony Davis at RT.

[Thurman#1]

We've got all sorts of things going on here:

-The 2 1st round picks that GB has used on OT have been nowhere near as good as their starting LT (a 4th round pick). I don't remember their line being that good but I could be wrong.

 

-Carpenter has been moved to guard because he couldn't play tackle.

 

-The point that I was making in Davis had nothing to do with draft position vs. when his QB was drafted. The point was that if you have a QB on a rookie contract you can afford to spend more in other areas. When your QB starts making $18M a year than you don't see a RT making what Davis currently does. That is a position that you can replace with a smaller investment.

 

-Lastly, picking a RT at 25 or so is a lot different than picking a RT at 9.

 

 

Well, you're wandering very far afield from what I'm interested in arguing.

 

What I'm concerned with is whether or not this move of taking an RT early has been made by teams with good FOs. And it has, a bunch of times.

 

I'm not interested in whether teams that have made that move did a good job with the pick. Beside the point. Teams make bad picks at every position. It's not as if the reason they made a bad pick was that they picked an RT. The reason they made a bad pick was that they made a bad evaluation of that player.

 

Yeah, Carpenter was a bad pick. There were plenty of other bad picks high in that draft too at many positions, including QB. Does that mean that nobody should draft people at the position those bad picks play, that since somebody grabbed a bad QB high that nobody should go QB high? No way to defend that logic. Again, the question is whether good teams do that, and they do, and whether it can work out well when the evaluation was on target, and the SF line proves that it can. Anthony Davis was very much worth his draft spot, which was very close to #9.

 

How much a QB is being paid means nothing in this discussion. How close to the cap a team is, that means something, but SF extended Davis last year when they were very close to the cap. They did that because he is an excellent player who makes a difference in their outcomes.

 

And I think you're leading yourself astray when you say that 25th is all that different from 9th. Either way, you want the BPA, or maybe the BPA at a position of need. No, you don't draft a punter that high, obviously, but even guards have been drafted that high lately. A good OL can be a big piece of a team's success.

Edited April 22, 2014 by Thurman#1

[thewildrabbit]

Over the last 15 years this team has used all those early first round picks on RB's, DB's, WR's, DT's, DE's and yet couldn't even field a freaking team with a winning record during all that time. How much did all those defensive players or supposed playmakers help the team win?

 

DE Erik Flowers 26, CB Nate Clements 21, OT Mike Williams 4, RB Willis McGahee 23, WR Lee Evans 13, QB JP Losman 22, DB Donte Whitner 8, DT John McCargo 26, RB Marshawn Lynch 12 , DB Leodis McKelvin 11, DE Aaron Maybin 11, C Eric Wood 28, RB CJ Spiller, 9 DT Marcell Dareus, 3, DB Stephon Gilmore, 10. QB EJ Manuel 16

 

2 DE's both busts

4 DB's all decent, nothing great

3 RB's all decent, one pro bowler for the Bills

2 DT's one bust, the other decent

2 QB's one bust, the other only played in 10 games

1 OT bust

1 OG / C stud

1 WR decent

 

How many pro bowl players drafted with the first pick in all that time Spiller in 2012, and Dareus in 2013. Has either player ever taken over a game, and won it by himself? How many winning teams fielded? How many playoffs games?

 

While everyone clamoring for a *playmaker* in this draft, and yet they don't care that EJ will be running for his life again this year if that O line isn't upgraded. 108 hits, 48 sacks last year is unacceptable

 

 

The late GM John Butler thought enough of the O line to draft OG Ruben Brown with the 14th pick in the first round on him. Brown played 13 years in the NFL, and made the pro bowl 9 times. So, don't tell me that any O linemen drafted in the first round is wasted. The 64-65 AFL Championship Buffalo Bills had a pro bowler at every position on that O line. Every position on that O line is as equally important as every position on the defensive line.