I still don't like the Whitner and McCargo picks

[Alaska Darin]

I sure as hell Whitner turns out to be fine safety. I guess you have different standards than me.

Translation: My ass is stinging from the spanking, so I'll attempt to take the high road.

 

Thanks for playing.

[Lurker]

You missed Bill's point. On the one hand, the Bills use a lot of first round picks on defensive backs. On the other, those defensive backs seldom remain here beyond their first contracts. Nate Clements may be a good case in point, as was Antoine Winfield. The Bills have been dumping too many high round draft picks into their secondary, while at the same time neglecting the offensive line.

 

I'm trying to figure out the logic that says the Bills "dump" too many high round picks into players that turn out to be near Pro Bowl caliber. Explain how it would be any different if they drafted high quality O-linemen who would eventually become free agents?

[Scraps]

I'm trying to figure out the logic that says the Bills "dump" too many high round picks into players that turn out to be near Pro Bowl caliber. Explain how it would be any different if they drafted high quality O-linemen who would eventually become free agents?

 

Using a pick on a player isn't a problem. Letting the talent go in free agency forcing you to use another high round pick to replace the talent you allready had is the problem. Why not resign your proven talent and use the draft to address chronic areas of need?

[Pyrite Gal]

I'm trying to figure out the logic that says the Bills "dump" too many high round picks into players that turn out to be near Pro Bowl caliber. Explain how it would be any different if they drafted high quality O-linemen who would eventually become free agents?

 

It can also be taken from the statement that our problem is taking DBs instead of OL players that we have failed because we took performers such as AW, NC and even Thomas Smith when instead we should have taken more first round quality OL players like Mike Williams.

 

In the end it comes back to making poor choices of specific players rather than emphasizing one position or the other. TD did devote attention to spending first day picks on players like Mike Williams and Jonas Jennings and in fact he did draft 1 or 2 OL players each draft. The problem was not simply one of philosophy but of the players chosen. The problem was not one of TD being too cheap to extend the OL players he acquired, it would have been a stupid strategy to extend rather than cut the failed MW, to extend the injury prone Jonas Jennings or to keep Sullivan who simply was not a good player.

 

The real irony here is that looking at TD's drafts as a whole, even with these horrendous failures his record of drafting even with flops like MW is not really all that bad. If anything, I think he can be faulted based on the record of not finding (ie, lucking into) second day picks outside of McGee who became Pro Bowlers.

 

In the end, I think that these conclusions are based in the faulty idea that the draft though ONE of the tools for building a good team is simply ONE and not even the lead tool for many good teams in terms of building a winner. Thanks to fantasy leagues and the hype of ESPN the draft is given far more importance than it is worth as a tool for building a winning team.

 

The draft is important, just certainly not the ONLY important or even the most important thing.

[Scraps]

It can also be taken from the statement that our problem is taking DBs instead of OL players that we have failed because we took performers such as AW, NC and even Thomas Smith when instead we should have taken more first round quality OL players like Mike Williams.

 

Actually, the statement really asks why not keep those performers past their 1st contract instead of letting them walk in free agency?

 

In the end, I think that these conclusions are based in the faulty idea that the draft though ONE of the tools for building a good team is simply ONE and not even the lead tool for many good teams in terms of building a winner. Thanks to fantasy leagues and the hype of ESPN the draft is given far more importance than it is worth as a tool for building a winning team.

 

The draft is important, just certainly not the ONLY important or even the most important thing.

 

So how good was TDs record at addressing the OL through those other "things" like free agency?

[Orton's Arm]

I'm trying to figure out the logic that says the Bills "dump" too many high round picks into players that turn out to be near Pro Bowl caliber. Explain how it would be any different if they drafted high quality O-linemen who would eventually become free agents?

Over the course of his career, Bills' first round pick Antoine Winfield will end up having contributed significantly more to the Vikings than he has to the Bills. The same might end up being true of Nate Clements and whichever team signs him. Thinking back, you also have to consider first round CBs like Jeff Burris and Thomas Smith.

 

Traditionally, the Bills' response to their first round CBs playing well has been to let them walk in free agency. How on earth can you build a Super Bowl champion if your draft successes from five or six years ago are playing for some other team? Either the Bills should extend whichever high round DBs work out well, or they shouldn't use first round picks on DBs in the first place.

 

During the Jeff Burris/Thomas Smith/Antoine Winfield/Nate Clements years, the Bills have generally had a good secondary. But from the mid-'90s to today, the team's also had a mediocre to downright bad offensive line. Further, the team's generally spent very few first-day picks on offensive linemen.

 

A while back, I did a regression which showed that for each first round offensive lineman you take who turns into a starter, your team is expected to win two additional games. Statistics can show correlation but not causation. So we need to ask ourselves: to what extent might the play of those first round offensive line starters be causing their teams' additional wins? It's fairly obvious to me that teams which keep their QBs upright, and open holes for their RBs, will win more games than teams which don't do these things. One thing I noticed about the Patriots/San Diego game is how, after a few series, the Patriots' offensive line took control of the line of scrimmage. Once that happened, the Patriots' offense came alive; and they won the game. The same thing happened a few years earlier when the Patriots won that Super Bowl against the Carolina Panthers.

 

I'm not saying that the only possible way to build your offensive line is through first and second round picks. Generally teams with good lines use a few high round picks, as well as a few guys from lower rounds or UDFAs. You try to find quality offensive linemen late in the draft when possible, but you use high round picks to fill out whichever OL positions are still an area of need.

 

However, the Bills haven't been able to throw high round OL picks at their needs on the OL, because their picks have been consumed elsewhere. After drafting DBs who leave after their first contract, slot receivers, RBs, Bledsoe trades, and the like, there simply weren't high round picks left over for the offensive line. During his tenure here, TD used eight picks in the first two rounds on offensive skill position players, while using just one such pick on an offensive lineman. John Butler went from 1996 - 2000 without using a first or second round pick on an offensive lineman; and Marv didn't use any rounds 1 or 2 picks on offensive linemen this year. That's an eleven year stretch with just one offensive lineman chosen in the first two rounds.

 

By ignoring the offensive line in the first two rounds of the draft, the Bills created a situation where they had to find a good player for every OL position later in the draft, or through free agency. And that's extremely difficult to do. If you do well you can fill two spots with UDFAs or late round picks; maybe even three. But if you categorically refuse to fill offensive line needs with early picks, it will be almost impossible to find an answer for those last two or three OL spots. Other than the Tampa Bay Bucs, I can't think of any examples of teams which won the Super Bowl without having a very good offensive line. If the Bills continue to ignore the line in the future as they have in the recent past, it's almost certain they'll continue to be denied the Lombardi Trophy.

[Lurker]

By ignoring the offensive line in the first two rounds of the draft, the Bills created a situation where they had to find a good player for every OL position later in the draft, or through free agency.

 

So again, suppose they drafted a stud O-lineman with their first pick every year...who then went on to became a star and hit the jackpot in FA. Those guys would be just as likely to end up on other teams after their initial contracts were up. I don't see how you'd be any further ahead and would need to be drafting OL every year to fill the same holes.

 

If we had picked Steve Hutchenson in 2001 instead of Nate, would the team be any better off in 2007 when neither guy would be on the roster?

 

Maybe we should only draft "above average" players rather than stars....

[MRW]

So again, suppose they drafted a stud O-lineman with their first pick every year...who then went on to became a star and hit the jackpot in FA. Those guys would be just as likely to end up on other teams after their initial contracts were up. I don't see how you'd be any further ahead and would need to be drafting OL every year to fill the same holes.

 

If we had picked Steve Hutchenson in 2001 instead of Nate, would the team be any better off in 2007 when neither guy would be on the roster?

 

Maybe we should only draft "above average" players rather than stars....

Extending this further, given how quickly DBs can step and contribute relative to offensive linemen, aren't we getting better value from picking a DB early? I think what you're saying is true, the problem is letting good performers go rather than the specific positions we're drafting. It does make it very tough to build a solid team.

 

(Note on the above: I would much rather keep Clements and get a good OG in the draft, but given that Clements is likely gone, I can think of worse picks than a CB in the draft. McGee/Youboty as starting corners scares the crap out of me.)

[Orton's Arm]

So again, suppose they drafted a stud O-lineman with their first pick every year...who then went on to became a star and hit the jackpot in FA. Those guys would be just as likely to end up on other teams after their initial contracts were up. I don't see how you'd be any further ahead and would need to be drafting OL every year to fill the same holes.

 

If we had picked Steve Hutchenson in 2001 instead of Nate, would the team be any better off in 2007 when neither guy would be on the roster?

 

Maybe we should only draft "above average" players rather than stars....

The problem I have with the Bills' drafting strategy is that they seem to have a very high willingness to take DBs with first round picks, and a very low willingness to extend these DBs beyond their first contracts. Yes, this would be a problem if it was done at some other position (such as OL) instead. The problem with pursuing the draff high/don't extend strategy at any position is that it drains draft picks from the rest of the team. I've been focusing on the deleterious effect this has been having on the offensive line, because the OL has been an obvious team need for over a decade. During that decade, the Bills did almost nothing to address that need.

[Lurker]

The problem I have with the Bills' drafting strategy is that they seem to have a very high willingness to take DBs with first round picks, and a very low willingness to extend these DBs beyond their first contracts.

 

So if they had drafted Hutch in 2001, they wouldn't have had a problem retaining him, huh?

 

IMO, the problem you're are describling has more to do with being a small market team in the FA era than drafting strategy. If those DBs had not left, perhaps the O-Line could have been addressed. But the point's moot since other teams were willing to outbid the Bills for their services and those holes had to be filled.

 

The other way to look at it is if the day-1 picks had been spent on OL guys, the secondary could have sucked over the same time frame, which would be just as big a problem as the O-line woes during TD's run.

[Scraps]

So if they had drafted Hutch in 2001, they wouldn't have had a problem retaining him, huh?

 

IMO, the problem you're are describling has more to do with being a small market team in the FA era than drafting strategy. If those DBs had not left, perhaps the O-Line could have been addressed. But the point's moot since other teams were willing to outbid the Bills for their services and those holes had to be filled.

 

The other way to look at it is if the day-1 picks had been spent on OL guys, the secondary could have sucked over the same time frame, which would be just as big a problem as the O-line woes during TD's run.

 

For most if not all of the last decade, the small market excuse just doesn't cut it. The Bills were close to the cap in every year. Maybe things have changed in the last year.

 

The Bills could try to work an extension the year before a contract is set to expire. You usually save a little money by doing that.

[Lurker]

For most if not all of the last decade, the small market excuse just doesn't cut it. The Bills were close to the cap in every year. Maybe things have changed in the last year.

 

The Bills could try to work an extension the year before a contract is set to expire. You usually save a little money by doing that.

 

The biggest change in the last five years has been the way contracts are structured with more up front money / signing bonuses. The inequity between a Danny Boy Snyder being able to pay out an $18 million bonus vs. Ralph--not the actual cap number--is where the have's and have nots are starting to appear.

 

What the NFL really needs is a Signing Bonus Cap, but the NFLPA and the large market teams would never go for it...

[DrDawkinstein]

Maybe we should only draft "above average" players rather than stars....

 

that hasnt worked for the patriots at all

[jimmyv.]

Translation: My ass is stinging from the spanking, so I'll attempt to take the high road.

 

Thanks for playing.

 

 

We're talking apples and oranges. I could argue with each of your points in last thread, but there's no point. I stick to the original post that questioned taking of Whitner and McCargo.

[Bill from NYC]

Over the course of his career, Bills' first round pick Antoine Winfield will end up having contributed significantly more to the Vikings than he has to the Bills. The same might end up being true of Nate Clements and whichever team signs him. Thinking back, you also have to consider first round CBs like Jeff Burris and Thomas Smith.

 

Traditionally, the Bills' response to their first round CBs playing well has been to let them walk in free agency. How on earth can you build a Super Bowl champion if your draft successes from five or six years ago are playing for some other team? Either the Bills should extend whichever high round DBs work out well, or they shouldn't use first round picks on DBs in the first place.

 

During the Jeff Burris/Thomas Smith/Antoine Winfield/Nate Clements years, the Bills have generally had a good secondary. But from the mid-'90s to today, the team's also had a mediocre to downright bad offensive line. Further, the team's generally spent very few first-day picks on offensive linemen.

 

A while back, I did a regression which showed that for each first round offensive lineman you take who turns into a starter, your team is expected to win two additional games. Statistics can show correlation but not causation. So we need to ask ourselves: to what extent might the play of those first round offensive line starters be causing their teams' additional wins? It's fairly obvious to me that teams which keep their QBs upright, and open holes for their RBs, will win more games than teams which don't do these things. One thing I noticed about the Patriots/San Diego game is how, after a few series, the Patriots' offensive line took control of the line of scrimmage. Once that happened, the Patriots' offense came alive; and they won the game. The same thing happened a few years earlier when the Patriots won that Super Bowl against the Carolina Panthers.

 

I'm not saying that the only possible way to build your offensive line is through first and second round picks. Generally teams with good lines use a few high round picks, as well as a few guys from lower rounds or UDFAs. You try to find quality offensive linemen late in the draft when possible, but you use high round picks to fill out whichever OL positions are still an area of need.

 

However, the Bills haven't been able to throw high round OL picks at their needs on the OL, because their picks have been consumed elsewhere. After drafting DBs who leave after their first contract, slot receivers, RBs, Bledsoe trades, and the like, there simply weren't high round picks left over for the offensive line. During his tenure here, TD used eight picks in the first two rounds on offensive skill position players, while using just one such pick on an offensive lineman. John Butler went from 1996 - 2000 without using a first or second round pick on an offensive lineman; and Marv didn't use any rounds 1 or 2 picks on offensive linemen this year. That's an eleven year stretch with just one offensive lineman chosen in the first two rounds.

 

By ignoring the offensive line in the first two rounds of the draft, the Bills created a situation where they had to find a good player for every OL position later in the draft, or through free agency. And that's extremely difficult to do. If you do well you can fill two spots with UDFAs or late round picks; maybe even three. But if you categorically refuse to fill offensive line needs with early picks, it will be almost impossible to find an answer for those last two or three OL spots. Other than the Tampa Bay Bucs, I can't think of any examples of teams which won the Super Bowl without having a very good offensive line. If the Bills continue to ignore the line in the future as they have in the recent past, it's almost certain they'll continue to be denied the Lombardi Trophy.

 

This was a simply amazing post. It will fall on many deaf ears, but each and every word is completely true.

 

Imagine if Peters didn't fall into our laps! The Bills would have the worst OL in the NFL. Now that we have Peters (who at the rate he is going will soon be a literal star) and a possible good RT in Pennington, it really shouldn't be too hard to build a good OL if it is deemed important by Levy and crew.

The odds of doing so with another udfa and a 7th round pick are next to nil. Resources must be devoted to making the Bills a strong football team on both sides of the line. Will it happen? You tell me.

 

If my life depended on guessing right, I would predict that Nate will walk, and Marv will draft a first round corner come hell or high water. After that is anybody's guess. Will we get anything at OG besides a scrap heap scrub free agent or a late round draft choice? I hope so. We will need to in order to win.

 

All we can do is hope that I am wrong and that Marv is able to do anything but chase early dbs yet again.

[Bill from NYC]

So if they had drafted Hutch in 2001, they wouldn't have had a problem retaining him, huh?

 

IMO, the problem you're are describling has more to do with being a small market team in the FA era than drafting strategy. If those DBs had not left, perhaps the O-Line could have been addressed. But the point's moot since other teams were willing to outbid the Bills for their services and those holes had to be filled.

 

The other way to look at it is if the day-1 picks had been spent on OL guys, the secondary could have sucked over the same time frame, which would be just as big a problem as the O-line woes during TD's run.

 

Did Seattle do better in 05 with Hutchinson than without him in 06? Please be serious.

 

NFL football games are generally won and lost up front. A strong line affords long scoring drives for the offense and an opportunity for the defense to remain fresh and rested.

If you think that the Bills strategy of chasing "skill position" players is so legit, please explain the losses and lack of playoff appearances.

 

This should be good.

[Git'er Done]

Nice post,

A big factor to consider is that an offensive lineman can have a looong career, I'm guessing because they don't have to be fast, whereas a DB or RB have shorter (effective) careers because a step or two lost is so much more crucial. This may have

played into the Bills thinking in the past. I don't think it's necessary to spend a bunch of 1st round picks on offensive linemen, but an "anchor" type guy can hold his value for so long, and you won't need to replace him for 13 years!

[Pyrite Gal]

Actually, the statement really asks why not keep those performers past their 1st contract instead of letting them walk in free agency?

So how good was TDs record at addressing the OL through those other "things" like free agency?

 

TDs record of addressing OL issues was lousy during his time here as GM.

 

However, it would be a mistake to simply assume that because he did poorly at addressing the OL that his mistake was that he did not resign his OL players beyond their first contracts.

 

In fact, it was his failure to draft good "performers" at OL positions which led to it being a dumb thing if the Bills has not cut MW, had not cut Sullivan and in particular it would have been horrible strategy to spend big bucks to resign JJ given his record of injury proneness here and its continuation (actually acceleration) since SF was foolish enough to sign him to an FA deal.

 

A good point is raised in that though TD did draft an OL player each uear (WR is the only other position which can make this claim) and though he did spend his highest selection on an OL player, overall only 2 od hia 5 years of 2 first day choices were for OL players when given OL is 5 of the 22 position player positions numerically he should have drafted 4 OL guys on the first day. However, even this variation from a numerical norm does not seem to be such an abject departure from the numeric norm that I think its hard to make a case of him ignoring the OL for the most part (and actually its impossible to claim he ignored it completely given his choices).

 

The interesting thing to me though is despite this flawed OL strategy, when one totals up the Pro Bowl appearing players he did pick from Clements and Henry and on through Schobel (he made it this year but he was a choice by the TD led crew) numerically he seemed to do pretty well in making successful draft picks overall ( a number of his choices such as Evans and even JP look like very good pros for which their play being good enough to win the Pro Bowl popularity contest is not impossible at all).

 

Overall, i think it simply shows how big of a crapshoot the NFL draft really is and that thanks to a great promotional job of the draft by the NFL and ESPN and kicked into high gear by the education many fans fans have been given about the stats of individual players in fantasy leagues and Madden video games, folks simply seem to ignore the many failures picked by the best of GMs in each and every draft and make false conclusions (often seen on TSW) that just because it is true that stud RBs can be found late in the draft, that somehow it is also true that a proven RB like WM who can gain a 1,000 yards in a season is somehow the equivalent of a first day draft choice when there is a significant chance that even a first round RB may end up being a bust,

 

Even RBs who do turn out to have produtive careers can unfortunately turn out to be crap initially (see Larry Alexander his first two years when he gained 85 yards and then just short of 600 yds his second year). The concept that one should count upon a draftee being your #1 RB (with a requirement that he has to be better than WM in production to not be a disappointment) is simply a little bit risky to advocate a GM or HC stake their jobs and their team's future on unless they are simply forced to do so by injury, retirement or the player being unable to play.

[Pyrite Gal]

This was a simply amazing post. It will fall on many deaf ears, but each and every word is completely true.

 

Imagine if Peters didn't fall into our laps! The Bills would have the worst OL in the NFL. Now that we have Peters (who at the rate he is going will soon be a literal star) and a possible good RT in Pennington, it really shouldn't be too hard to build a good OL if it is deemed important by Levy and crew.

The odds of doing so with another udfa and a 7th round pick are next to nil. Resources must be devoted to making the Bills a strong football team on both sides of the line. Will it happen? You tell me.

 

If my life depended on guessing right, I would predict that Nate will walk, and Marv will draft a first round corner come hell or high water. After that is anybody's guess. Will we get anything at OG besides a scrap heap scrub free agent or a late round draft choice? I hope so. We will need to in order to win.

 

All we can do is hope that I am wrong and that Marv is able to do anything but chase early dbs yet again.

 

The line which i think is most true in this post (things in it look fairly accurate) is where it notes that correlation does not prove causation.

 

There clearly is a correlation between the Bills failure to draft OL players and their bad records. However, there are so many essentially notable reasons for this failure (my personal favorite whipping item was their miscalculation in thinking Jimbo was going to be good enough to sign a new deal when Ralph made his handshake agreement and then spending virtually each and every year through the end of the Butler era scrambling and overpaying to get a QB which finally resulted in this team being unable to afford vets on ST who could stay in their lanes for the Homerun Throw-Up) that it simply does not stand as a full explanation of reality to pin the bad record on this OL issue.

 

Even worse, when you look to the OL failure, it is correct that the team did not find good players in the draft to replace them, however, its not like TD made zero effort to do this (though the effort was obviously too small of one as I think he should have been closer to the numeric expectation of him picking 4 OL players from his three first day choices each of five years rather than the 2 he did pick on the first day in his 5 tears - your choice of 1 pick in the first two rounds rather than the 2 picks he made on the first day of his 5 drafts is an amusing arbitrary choice of a cut off by you and a nice statistical choice to buttress your argument but avoid the broader truth).

 

My sense is that not only do you admit that causation and correlation are different things but attempt to prove they are the same by carefully choosing statistical cut off dates and ignoring a gross and repetitive series of Bills braintrust errors which arguably are at least as important (and in my mind more important than our OL errors such as the mishandling of the QB position and a really dumb choice to switch from a 3-4 D to a 4-3 thus increasing our need for DL players while at the same time losing Big Ted, Wiley, Bruce and Hansen to the cap and retirement), but also your analysis of not making enpugh draft choice commitment to OL simply ignores the fact that our OL problems were due to other significant failures which deserve attention or fixing as much as the draft situation does.

 

Specifically:

 

1. TD's biggest OL failing in my mind was that he hired GW as HC and ge appeared to be so bad and insecure about offensive work that his first OC he picked was so bad he got canned while under contract and he hired personal buddy Vinky who has zero OL coaching experience as our OL coach. Adding insult to injury, they followed up by hiring Kevin Killdrive as OC and the equally inexperienced Ruel as OL coach to replace Vinky because he was so bad. If one wants to look at a likely big part of the reason we had such poor OL focus in the draft and even more horribly made bad choices of the few OL players picked, the OL analysis really needs to start with the bad pickers and horrible trainers before one goes to complaining we did not pick enough OL players.

 

I know that a focus on the men in charge of the OL and offense is not the focus you want to make if your goal is simply to argue for more OL drafting, as JMac is such a clear upgrade over Vinky and Ruel. What is interesting about choosing him is that actually his OL skill has not resulted in more prime OL choices but actually in us being comfortable using out draft asset elsewhere. This actually appears to be a not horrendous strategy as Peters was not a UDFA we lucked into, but it was JMac who identified and convinced him to give up on his TE desires and instead focus on OL. This decision paid off. JMac ain't flawless by a longshot and has always said he is no miracle worker (Bennie Anderson proved this was true). However, his hiring has made a marked difference in the quality of our OL and allowed us to do this on the cheap actually with folks like Peters, training of Pennington, relatively cheap acquisition of servicable FAs like Fowler and use of a few big draft choices on folks like Preston. Will that be enough? We will see but certainly I feel better about our OL than I have in years.

 

2. TD was aware he was playing it fast and lose on OL and tried to compensate for his marginal but significant ignoring of the draft for Ol prospects by attempting to get lucky with some late OL picks of talented damaged players or cheap talented but damaged FAs. Our lack of early OL draftees would not have been a problem if the attempts to get players Sobieski or Farris to work out and overcome their injuries or if folks like Vinky could train a Pucillo or Sullivan into being better players,

 

I think that one needs to at least acknowledge that TD in choosing to not pick enough OL players in his 5 years did not simply pass on them because he was dumb (other things showed how dumb he was IMHO) but instead of OL players he actually chose 12 men from the 15 first day picks he started out with who actually were still playing with the Bills last year, It was not like he passed on OL players to choose players who did not fill other needs for us, One might disagree with his choices but one should note if you want to make a full case amd an honest case which of our first day choices you think we could do without (Losman, Evans, Whitner) and whether you would be comfortable with Holcomb, Peerless, or Coy Wire being your starter or you have some other plan beside the draft for filling these holes.

 

At any rate I do not disagree with the facts as they are presented in the lack of OL commitment, i just think it is a more complex story than the simple solution of picking some more Jonas Jennings and Mike Williams to solve our problems if you do not think that the GW and Vinky assessments and training were not a big issue.

[Scraps]

TDs record of addressing OL issues was lousy during his time here as GM.

 

However, it would be a mistake to simply assume that because he did poorly at addressing the OL that his mistake was that he did not resign his OL players beyond their first contracts.

But that isn't my criticism. My criticism was that he refused to resign proven talent at DB and used high draft picks to fill the holes he created by refusing to resign proven DBs. If he had resigned the proven DBs, he may have been able to use the draft picks he used on DBs on OLs instead.

 

Even worse, when you look to the OL failure, it is correct that the team did not find good players in the draft to replace them, however, its not like TD made zero effort to do this (though the effort was obviously too small of one as I think he should have been closer to the numeric expectation of him picking 4 OL players from his three first day choices each of five years rather than the 2 he did pick on the first day in his 5 tears - your choice of 1 pick in the first two rounds rather than the 2 picks he made on the first day of his 5 drafts is an amusing arbitrary choice of a cut off by you and a nice statistical choice to buttress your argument but avoid the broader truth).

 

My choice? What are you talking about?

 

The interesting thing to me though is despite this flawed OL strategy, when one totals up the Pro Bowl appearing players he did pick from Clements and Henry and on through Schobel (he made it this year but he was a choice by the TD led crew) numerically he seemed to do pretty well in making successful draft picks overall ( a number of his choices such as Evans and even JP look like very good pros for which their play being good enough to win the Pro Bowl popularity contest is not impossible at all).

 

Hmm, all first day draft picks in your list. Perhaps if he had spent some of those first day draft picks on offensive linemen some of them would be solid pros or Pro Bowlers.