About the Draft

[Pyrite Gal]

2001 should be a good bet.....We had Schoebel, Clements, and Henry start

(I think).

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Even thiough I liked this drsft (TD was smart enough to pull off a trade down) his draft actually shows why the number of starters slected and whether it was a good draft are not the same thing.

 

The number of starting and contributing players is determined not simply by the quality of the draft but by the quality of the team doing the drafting. Since the Bills has just had to do a major house cleaning due to cap implications, there were simply more oppoerunities for players to start and play. Even if the Bills had drafted lower quality players they probably would have had to start anyway.

 

This example is best seen in that 5 round (I think) cboice Brandon Spoon ended up being our starting MLB that year due to the team starter quality being altered by the injury to Cowart. Though Schobel, Clements and to some extent Henry were productive pros who started for us, Spoon was soon out of the NFL even though he started for us.

 

One needs to be careful in assuming that their is a direct analogy beteen even being a starter and being very good.

[Pyrite Gal]

The worst Bills draft of the past 15 years was probably the 2002 draft, which played a big role in setting this team back to what it is now (particularly when including the Duh Bledslow trade).

 

 

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I think the trade for Bledsoe was a good one and instead it was the decision to extend his contract which was the big mistake TD made.

 

Depending on how high a value one places on the draft (I think it is an important part of a winning strategy as good players are what you want and good players tend to be drafted, the draft is so competitive with 31 other teams having choices that in essence it is a crapshoot whether you will get the players you want and whether they will pay off) on the field Bledsoe had one very good year and one horrenedous year and was a wash at best in assessing performance.

 

However, when one factors into this that the alternatives for the Bills at QB were likely available FAs like Chris Chandler and Rodney Peete or sticking with what we had in using AVP as a starter, getting Bledsoe and his very good 2002 was a huge benefit for us.

 

Another piece of off-field reality which cannot be ignored if one is interested in reality is that after a 3-13 season, Bledsoe's appearance here really reinvigorated interest in ths franchise as the 10K+ which showed up for the welcome Drew bash and bought a bunch of season tickets indiciated.

 

Add to this that the cost of getting Blesoe was merely a future 1st so that we got him for 2002 at no 2002 cost to the team and that having a missing 1st in 2003 almost certainly was an impetus in TD purusuing a risky stetegy of tagging Peerless and then holding out for a 1st from AT rather than a 2nd and then that 1st became WM, the whole situation of this trade was a very good deal for the bills until TD engaged in the separate foolishness of extending bledsoe.

 

Certainly it is theoretically possible that TD would have had the cojones to tag PP anyway and stick it to Arthur Blank for a 1st anyway and that without trading for Bledsoe we would have had 2 1sts in 2003, but this is not what happened and seems risky that I doubt it would have happened.

 

I think it makes more sense to look at the reality and judge the Bledsoe happenings as an obvious failure, but an analysis of this reality shows the failure to be rooted in the supid 2004 decision to extend Bledsoe and then the decision to hand the starting QB job to a not-ready-for-primetime JP rather than the decision to trade for him.

 

In terms of that piece, the decision to trade for him was at worst a wash on the field and when off field items are added the trade was a great move until TD did not quit while he was ahead and say thanks but goodbye to Bledsoe after 2003.