The Two Things I Actually Like About this Draft

[Ennjay]

1: The Bills are going young for guys with lots of upside -- hence all the juniors. Look, this team is doing nothing in 2006, so I like going after younger guys who could grow into superior football players in 2 or 3 years. (Doesn't mean Donte should've gone #8 or McCargo in the first round this year, but in 2009 these guys could be real studs.) I'm not volunteering to suffer short-term but I think we have no choice anyway.

 

2: Whatever you think of the trade that was made and (i'm guessing) trades that weren't, no FUTURE picks were thrown away. So we're in good position with all our picks in the 2007 draft.

[njbillsfan]

im also glad about the future picks, but some help for this season wouild be nice

[Pyrite Gal]

1:  The Bills are going young for guys with lots of upside -- hence all the juniors.  Look, this team is doing nothing in 2006, so I like going after younger guys who could grow into superior football players in 2 or 3 years.  (Doesn't mean Donte should've gone #8 or McCargo in the first round this year, but in 2009 these guys could be real studs.)  I'm not volunteering to suffer short-term but I think we have no choice anyway.

 

2:  Whatever you think of the trade that was made and (i'm guessing) trades that weren't, no FUTURE picks were thrown away.  So we're in good position with all our picks in the 2007 draft.

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This team is certainly not going to win the SB in 2006.

 

This team is almost certainly not going to make the playoffs in 2006.

 

However, if this team is competitive week in and week out and actually posts a record sbove .500 I do not consider this doing nothing.

 

In fact, I think that this goal is the least which Marv and Ralph are after and that this was a NEED draft for them because after being blanked from the playoffs under TD, though the team is probably over a season away from making the playoffs, the chose players not based on a sense of accomplishing a goal a few seasons away but of winning now.

 

I like this. In an NFL where worst to first is possible like never before, I think you need to go for it every year even though building slowly is probably a more reasonable approach.

 

Several things strike me about this draft:

 

1. If we were on a 2-3 year plan a bias toward picking the best available player would be the correct thing to do. However, as the team is in the immediate mode I think the plan all along was to get Whitmer in the mid-1st, and hope that they coulf pick up an early 2nd or package somethings to trade into the late first and get McCargo.

 

Instead the OAK pick killed us as we were down to only the one SS who might start and we could not trade down to get a shot at McCargo for fear of losing Whitmer.

 

This le to us being forced to stretch for Whitmer and to trade value (actually fair valu according to value charts) to get McCargo.

 

2. A player can be both a bad draft pick and a good choice by the team.

 

Whitmer is a great example of this paradox, He definitely was a stretch as a draft pick who was reasonably slated to go in the mid first. The Bills took him at a much higher spot than he reasonably should hae gone. However, we were simply forced to take him at an unreasonable slot becaise we could not risk losing him and either having to overreach for Bullocks or Manning (the next safeties taken) or play Bowen/Wire as our SS.

 

The paradox is that though this was a bad draft pick, he is also probably a good choice for this team:

 

A. We definitely upgraded over having to start Bowen or Wire. This is simply a much better team by this choice.

B. He was a stretch at #8 but we expect an immediate starter out of any first round choice. Even if we had arranged to make a better draft pick by getting at 15 or 18, he would also be seen as a clear and reasonable starting candidate for this team and his skill set looks very good for playing SS in a Cover 2.

C. The major hit we took in being forced to take him earlier than he merited was that we had to use other resources to move up. If we had instead felt comfortable trading down with a team like the Rams for an extra second, we then would have packaged this new pick with our original second to move up for Mccargo anyway.

 

What this situation likely cost us was having another first day pick which we likely would have used for Winston, Spencer. or maybe Justice if things fell right. The Bills will likely need to go to FA looking for an overpriced and declininig OL guy with still some level of positive talent to give to sabilize the OL.

 

This will be a tough find as guys like Allen from Dallas who were cut for contract reasons as much as anything else are snapped up. I have not looked at their injury situations or history but available folks from the likes of Stinhcomb, Backus, Broen, Neal, Mitchell, Raymer, etc. may be good enough to be a back-up for us when/if Villarial gets nicked, Peters turns out to not be a consistent fulltimer over a season or whatever. I do not know who yet, but we will need some help.

 

All in all, the draft did not turn out like we hoped it would break, but I think we got a solid likely SS, a possible solid DT (though he will need some work from some of the write ups as to get him to work on staying low and not getting too upright, an interesting CB who was a possible 1st round talent and almost definite second rounder in the third and another good talent at safety who needs some work.

 

3. Overall, er seemed to draft young coachable players with some ST possibilies.

 

I'd pretty easily judge this draft a B- at worst. If we can find another Peters in the UDFAs this will be a pretty good session for our team.