Oh man, Matt Leinart looked good too

[Draconator]

The point that is being missed is this.

 

Leinhert will not play at all this year. Dennis Green is his head coach, and going on history (Culpepper), he will sit and watch Kurt Warner play this year. He's pretty much a lock in year two, but not a chance this year.

[ROSCOE P. COE TRAIN]

I didn't think Leinart would be much in the pros, but last night in Chicago he did show poise, accuracy and zip on the ball,,,,,and escapability.   

We already know Jay Cutler has looked really good.

 

C'mon JP,  you need to come through for us or not taking one of these two QB's may come back to haunt the franchise.

752189[/snapback]

 

 

 

He is boom or bust. They say his arm strenght is weak. But they said that about Peyton Manning. Leinart is a leader, thats what I like about him. Jim Kelly #12 had raw skills, but he also was a leader. He called out the slackers and made guys accountable (ala the "bickering bills"). He took the "bull by horns." Talent on team has to have leaders and big time players from big time programs to lead...

[Tasker]

Let's not kid ourselves. Neither Leinart nor Cutler has made the plays that JP has made. Either of them could be better, JP could be a bust and we could all hate this draft, but not based on anything we know now or that Marv should have known on draft day.

 

Here is the very simple math for 2006:

 

Whitner + JP > Leinart + JP

and

Whitner + JP > Cutler + JP

 

So you are counting on Leinart or Cutler being better than JP in 2007 and beyond by enough of a difference to lose a guy like Dante. Could happen, but I don't think it will. All drafts have this kind of uncertainty, but I'm getting bored with Marv and the Bills getting ripped every time Cutler or Leinart completes a preseason pass.

 

By the way, last night Bunkley had no tackles and one assist, and Ngata had no tackles and one assist. Will this draft go down for the Ravens and Eagles as the Kyle Williams draft?

 

Does everyone focus on the 2000 draft as the Tom Brady draft? Even the Patriots because they passed on him five times and could easily have missed him had Cleveland not opted for QB Spergon Wynn 16 picks before Brady? No. The draft is unpredictable. Brady in the 6th round and Akili Smith, Tim Couch, Ryan Leaf, etc, etc, all taken in the top 5.

 

So I don't think that Cutler or Leinart over Whitner is a no-brainer by any stretch of the imagination, and for now I'm very happy with our draft.

[PromoTheRobot]

Everyone here assumes Paris Hilton's boyfriend would have even signed with the Bills if we drafted him. How would you all feel if we got ZIP for a 1st round pick?

 

PTR

[PromoTheRobot]

Any QB is going to look good with that WR core.  Perhaps the best WR core 1-3 in the game.

752275[/snapback]

You mean WR corps, not core.

 

And by the way...when has Leinert ever played in bad weather? He looks good in AZ. How does he do at the Ralph in the middle of a lake effect blizzard?

 

PTR

[/dev/null]

Not to mention that he dated Paris Hilton. That's really all you need to know about his personality.

752251[/snapback]

You can't really hold that against Leinhart. He's a celebrity now and Paris Hilton is the celebrity version of that girl that every other guy has hooked up with after getting dumped or when they've been single awhile and want some luvin.

 

You keep her around awhile and get some luvin til you get your mojo back and move on to the next girl. You say your goodbye and let her know how sweet she is blah blah blah and she moves onto the next lonely guy.

[TheMadCap]

Are you really comparing Losman to those QB's? 

752258[/snapback]

 

 

I didn't see him mention Losman at ALL in his post. His point, since you must have missed it, was that one preseason game means nothing, as veteran QBs sometimes look bad in them...

[Rico]

By the way, last night Bunkley had no tackles and one assist, and Ngata had no tackles and one assist.  Will this draft go down for the Ravens and Eagles as the Kyle Williams draft?

752316[/snapback]

You can't really judge NT's by looking at tackle stats. In comparison though, I'm looking forward to Donte making some plays tonight to begin proving he was a better pick.

[Pyrite Gal]

The problem with thinking like that is your mistakes continue to cost you.  Sometimes you just have to suck it up, admit that a mistake was made, make the corrective action, and go on from there.  I'm not saying Losman is at that point, but it doesn't look good and the fact that the Bills passed on two young QBs that are looking very good at this point makes Losman's growing pains harder to deal with.

752230[/snapback]

 

Let's presume that JP will not pan out because we judge he does not have the right stuff or that our clairvoyance allows us to see that even if he can develop as a player that he slips in the shower and is killed. The answer to the question how do we replace JP still leads to us not trying to do this by drafting Cutler or Leinart in the draft as taking a QB in the 1st has simply not been a good method for building a team caoable of going deeo in the playoffs or reaching the ultimate goal of winning the SB.

 

The facts on the ground remain that Ben RoboQB was the first time a team won the SB led by a QB they drafted in the 1st round since Dallas chose Aikman in the 1st in 1989. I'm not making this up, these are simply the fats.

 

Instead there has been more success in both winning the SB or eaven reaching the SB by acquiring a QB whom you pay at or neat the vet minimum, rather than taking the higher risk approach of drafting a QB in the first.

 

While real world experience shows no tried and true method to adopt which describes all or most ultimately successful teams (Tom Brady winning 3 SBs skews the results to look like a second day QB draft pick is the way to go rather than a 1st rounder) though looking back at all the recent how the SB QB was acquirs by the team which went to the SB shows:

 

05- RoboQB 1st round pick- Hasselbeck 2nd day pick

04- Brady 2nd day pick - McNabb first day pick

03- Brady 2nd day pick- Delhomme- UDFA

02- Johnson- FA- Gannon (either FA or trade)

01- Brady 2nd day choice- Warner UDFA

00- Dilfer- FA- Collins- FA

99- Warner- UDFA- McNair 1st round

98- Elway- trade, Chandler FA or trade

98- Elway trade- Favre- trade

97- Favre- trade Bledsoe 1st round pick.

 

The results of the last ten years show that SB appearing QBs were acquired by

 

2nd day picks- 4

1st day picks (all 1st rounders actually) - 4

FA- 6

Trade- - 4

Trade or FA- 2

 

Overall, I think past experience shows us there is simply no one way to acquire a QB capable of appearing in an SB. However, the facts of past experience indicates that:

 

1. A significantly higher % of success over he past 1o years has come from acquiring these QBs from FA or getting an experienced vet whom you have a pretty good idea what he can do rather than drafting a well regarded rookie.

 

In fact, when one takes into account that 2nd day QB draft picks accomplish success as much as 1st round picks and you take into account that being even a UDFA is no barrier to reaching or starrting in the SB, it draws into serious question folks slavish devotion to drafting the next big thing (such as JP Losman) in the first round.

 

Its no wonder that many Bills fans are willing to throw JP under the bus, he was a 1st rounder and like most QBs they fail. What is odd is that folks simply want to replicate this failed method yet again and roll a bunch of bucks into acquiring a new savior.

 

When one considers how the cap burden of a big QB contract really limits ones ability to build a winning team around him, the experience simply guides us to the large field of approaches where what the stud QBs share in common is that:

 

1. They have performed in the NFL and even if they are failed QBs previously such as Dilfer one knows what you are getting and what you need to build around him and supplement his talents to produce a winning squad (I am reluctant to mention Dilfer here because he is just one example of how an SB winning QB can be acquired cheaply but he is such a textbook example of how experience tells us this can be done correctly so understand he is mentioned as an example and rather than dismmissing this as an aberration please explain why the aberration of an SB winning QB who was orginainally paid at or about at the vet minimum has occured a number of times).

 

2. Or if the are rookies who have no NFL record, the winning team intelligently only commits vet minimum money to acquire this QB rather than devote a Ryan Leaf size slotted contract to this player incapable of leading a team to the SB (the same actually is true to date for the Indy commitment of cap room to a great QB like Manning).

 

I think the summary is that when you take into account the large hit that the Bills have already taken for team building opportunities in trading resources for JP, you are advocating adding to this burden by forgoing spending the 1st rounder to draft a player we judge as useful to building our D to spend resources again on a high stakes speculative QB choice,

 

The chances of your approach working out appear to go against past experience and even if Cutler or Leinart prove to be great, the best that the Bills would likely produce is a result like that of the Peyton Manning led Colts where you have a stud QB and an D which proves incapable of getting you to the final weekend.

 

Are you so certain that Leinart or Cutler will be as good as Peyton Manning and even if you are right with this dream do you really think the payoff of 10+ wins and no SB is worth the cost.

 

I think drafting cutler or Leinart would simply have been a high risk move that would involve us pursuing the same path that led to exactly the problem you are trying to remedy. Experience shows us there are tons of other ways to go that have worked.

[Tasker]

You can't really judge NT's by looking at a tackle stats. In comparison though, I'm looking forward to Donte making some plays tonight to begin proving he was a better pick.

752337[/snapback]

 

Of course not. I was just joking around by people overreacting to preseason performances and preseason stats. But I look forward to Dante stepping up and making some great plays as well.

[Peter]

Leinart looked great last night -- especially after a week and one-half of practice.

 

He also looked great against one of the top defenses in the league.

 

He is a leader, had the complete respect of his teamates at USC, and is a winner.

 

I saw him play in person against the Sooners in the National Championship game during his junior year. His arm looked great.

 

Leinart was fantastic against Notre Dame last year -- especially when he made that unbelievable throw on fourth and long against the cover two defense at the end of the game.

 

I find it amazing that the JP supporters on this board have found it necessary to go out of their way to criticize Leinart.

 

So far the comparison is not particularly favorable for JP.

 

On draft day, I was hoping that we would either draft Leinart (or the Brick if he fell to us) or trade our pick for extra picks. For whatever reason, we did not pick Leinart and were not able to trade down and be confident that we could still pick Whitner.

 

Someone earlier said that we are better off with JP and Whitner than we would be with Leinart and JP. That is really the wrong question.

 

I love Marv and am pleasently surprised with DJ. Yet, I have wondered whether we were forced to pick two guys in the first round because of a need that WE CREATED.

 

I hope that I am wrong about this, but I have a feeling that we would have been better off with Leinart, Lawyer Milloy, and Sam Adams than with JP, Whitner, and McCargo. [we probably still could have gotten McCargo in the second or traded up as we did if we really liked him]. We let Lawyer and Big Sam go because we were going to the cover two and had to change the personnel. Once again, we let the scheme dictate the personnel rather than the other way around. It kind of reminded me of what we did when GW was here to accomodate his scheme. It seems to me that is a philosophical difference that I will have and continue to have -- it is like the chicken and the egg. Our defensive scheme was fine for the key players that we had. We had one of the top defenses when GW took over. We then implemented his scheme and acquired the players suited for his scheme. We went through some growing pains and ultimately had one of the top defenses just a couple of years ago.

 

We will now go through some more growing pains. I just hope that JP and the team can get it together and we can all look back and say how brilliant the Bills were to stick with JP and overhaul the defense. In the meantime, Leinart looks pretty darn good -- especially after a week and a half of practice. On the other hand, in his third year in the league, JP shows moments of brilliance and other moments that leave a lot of us scratching our heads.

 

What is done is done. We will find out whether JP is the guy. The defense is going to have some growing pains. We will see if the o-line can protect JP and create some space for Willis. There are a lot of questions. Over the next several weeks, we will begin to find out some of the answers.

[Scraps]

While real world experience shows no tried and true method to adopt which describes all or most ultimately successful teams (Tom Brady winning 3 SBs skews the results to look like a second day QB draft pick is the way to go rather than a 1st rounder) though looking back at all the recent how the SB QB was acquirs by the team which went to the SB shows:

 

05- RoboQB 1st round pick- Hasselbeck 2nd day pick

04- Brady 2nd day pick - McNabb first day pick

03- Brady 2nd day pick- Delhomme- UDFA

02- Johnson- FA- Gannon (either FA or trade)

01- Brady 2nd day choice- Warner UDFA

00- Dilfer- FA- Collins- FA

99- Warner- UDFA- McNair 1st round

98- Elway- trade, Chandler FA or trade

98- Elway trade- Favre- trade

97- Favre- trade Bledsoe 1st round pick.

 

The results of the last ten years show that SB appearing QBs were acquired by

 

2nd day picks- 4

1st day picks (all 1st rounders actually) - 4

FA- 6

Trade- -  4

Trade or FA- 2

 

Overall, I think past experience shows us there is simply no one way to acquire a QB capable of appearing in an SB.  However, the facts of past experience indicates that:

 

1. A significantly higher % of success over he past 1o years has come from acquiring these QBs from FA or getting an experienced vet whom you have a pretty good idea what he can do rather than drafting a well regarded rookie.

 

In fact, when one takes into account that 2nd day QB draft picks accomplish success as much as 1st round picks and you take into account that being even a UDFA is no barrier to reaching or starrting in the SB, it draws into serious question folks slavish devotion to drafting the next big thing (such as JP Losman) in the first round.

752338[/snapback]

 

This is terribly deceptive. Though you say Tom Brady skews the results you seem to ignore that Favre and Elway skew the results as well since you count them as trades and do so twice.

 

While it may be technically true that Elway was a trade, he was only traded because he refused to play for Irsay. He was developed by the Broncos and played literally his entire career with the Broncos. He should be counted as a 1st round pick.

 

Though you claim that 2nd day picks accomplished as much success as first day picks, that simply is not true since you ignore where the traded or "free agent" players were drafted and you count Brady 3 times. Elway, Collins and Dilfer were all 1st round picks and Favre and Chandler were 1st day picks. If you were to look at where these players were drafted you would have 9 1st day picks (7 1st rounders), 4 2nd day picks and 2 UDFAs which does demonstrated a diminished level of return with draft status.

[Oneonta Buffalo Fan]

It's still the pre-season.

[MadBuffaloDisease]

Looks like the Bears were playing without 2/3 of the DT rotation including a starter, and 3/4 of their starting secondary.

[generaLee83]

Let's draft a QB every 2 years with a first round pick.  That's the way you build a championship team.    Especially when you got a former 1st round pick who is obviously a bust after 8 starts. 

 

This wasn't meant to be directed at the posted because they were positive in their comments.  But this whole wanting evey young QB from Schaub to Rivers to Culter to Leinart is just silly.  They have proven nothing.  Let's give John Paul a chance.

752229[/snapback]

 

Righ on with that. If Leinart was in the same spot as JP I'm sure the same people would be griping.

 

Every QB has a good game every now and then. If Leinart wins MVP this year and JP sh_ts the bed then there may be some reason to gripe.

 

So should Leinart be judged after just 8 games? He is supposed to be the second coming of the baby Jesus according to the critics. Would you dump Jesus after 8 games?

[Shamrock]

I disagree. For Levy, this draft was all about Whitner. Turning down offers for extra picks and reaching for Whitner was a shocking move. To then proceed to follow this up with yet more dbs in the 3rd and 4th round was nothing short of mind boggling considering the Bills many needs.

 

Tell me, if we had drafted Leinart, what would we have done with JP. Trade him? He cost the Bills a 1st, 2nd, and a 5th. How much do you think we could have got for him in a trade AFTER the draft? My guess would be a 3rd in 07, maybe less, but it is admittedly hard (if not impossible) to gauge.

 

I don't know if JP is, or ever will be any good. That said, the Bills at some point simply have to stop throwing away cap dollars and early draft selections on qbs, who are all but certain to be beaten half to death. JP is already here at a hefty price. We might as well see if he can play football.

 

The bottom line for me is that this was a draft that was ill matched toward the needs of the Buffalo Bills, but one of the only things that I DID like about it is that we passed on Leinart.

752212[/snapback]

 

Well reasoned...what are you doing here?

[Peter]

Looks like the Bears were playing without 2/3 of the DT rotation including a starter, and 3/4 of their starting secondary.

752386[/snapback]

 

Bears Defensive Starters