07 needs IMHO

[Bill from NYC]

good analysis. I'd franchise Fletcher though and put my money into building the front four. Okoye or Branch would be the first round pick for me, and I might even to for Justin Harrel if he makes it to round 3 (doubtful). I think there will be very good gaurd candidates there at 2 (Aaron Sears comes to mind). I worry about CB if Clements goes (like to keep him but I think there isgoing to OBSCENE money coming his way in free agency and we have to be keeping our heads about us.) I might look to free agency to get an "insurance" CB. I think our receivers are okay as is, but might take a flyer on Kelley Washington if available, and later in the draft look to that HUGE linebacker from Brown. It will be interesting to see how the combine goes.

 

All in all Pyrite gal, I think we're not far from being real contenders. My priorities would be to add strength to the trenches first and foremost and try to sign and keep the talent we have, although I can't see how we will be able to keep NC.

 

Tenny......this mock's for you!

[Pyrite Gal]

My record player has somehow got stuck -- it keeps repeating MLB Buster Davis FSU -- I'm telling you he is London Fletcher's replacement and I do think he could come in and play MLB right away.

 

I never have seen Davis. You obviously feel he can meet the need we have in our Tampa 2 based D that he can both tackle like a DT when necessary but deep cover like a safety when necessary.

 

the specific questions i would have are:

 

1. Did he play a lot of zone in college so that we can have some reasonable belief that he can play the deep cover against speedy WRs required of the MLB in our D.

 

2. Are there any specific reasons we think he will be able to read and diagnose plays at a sufficient level since there was a lot of dissatisfaction on TSW with the results produced with a decade of seeing NFL plays by Fletcher-Baker.

[Astrobot]

I think Levy and Co. are putting the final touches on their board as we speak. One of the things they must decide is" "At what positions would we be comfortable with a drafted rookie?". I posed this question a while back, and we thought that experience might be less important at DT than, say, CB or MLB. This leads me AWAY from drafting Hall-Revis-Houston in round 1 and toward getting our CB in Free Agency.

 

Some would say we have the experienced CB on the squad (Youboty-McGee-Kiwaukee Thomas), and that CB isn't our #1 need, so you could draft and train a rookie CB. I maintain that's what we've already done with Youboty.

[Pyrite Gal]

Also not sure why Pyrite is conviinced Crowell can master the MLB posittion which he has never played before.

 

Although it may take some time for Willis to learn the cover-2, at least he has played MLB for his entire career and has the athletic talent and size to make plays.

 

See TKOSpiked'd posts above for the specific answer to this question. To provide a bit more info, the answer to this question was best demonstrated in a pre-season game a couple of years back within which Crowell ran the D from MLB for more than a half against the lackluster Detroit crew. Though Detroit is not the best O in football and pre-season is simply pre-season, Crowell showed that for the most part he had learned the game and position well enough to not only call the plays, but read plays well enough that he pinched in on runs and faded back on passes.

 

Even with him showing he could do this, he was fooled once toward the end of the game by Detroit running a pretty vanilla O. My sense that it will be asking a lot of any rookie to right from the start of his career to do the diverse reads necessitated for the MLB by the way we play the Cover 2 simply adding up to a painful learning curve for any rookie thrown into this position.

 

In addition, if Willis is our MLB, the play calling duty will need to be shifted to a player near the center of the field and back who can see the plays and b heard (drafting Wills to start means that you have some objective reason to believe second year players Whitner or Simpson can do this job) or alternately you are willing to give his job to vets like TKO or Crowell to do this job from their outside positions.

 

I think we will give this job to Crowell who read and called signals for us in practice for two years, but even in this case I think we will move him to the MLB spot where he can see the whole field more equally and easily and communication will be an easier thing for him to do.

 

I think TKO has the knowledge to do this but i would rather he (and to some some extent Crowell which is why i would rather we tag F-B for a year) concentrate on continuing his recovery from injury rather than taking responsibility for everyone else.

[Pyrite Gal]

I think Levy and Co. are putting the final touches on their board as we speak. One of the things they must decide is" "At what positions would we be comfortable with a drafted rookie?". I posed this question a while back, and we thought that experience might be less important at DT than, say, CB or MLB. This leads me AWAY from drafting Hall-Revis-Houston in round 1 and toward getting our CB in Free Agency.

 

Some would say we have the experienced CB on the squad (Youboty-McGee-Kiwaukee Thomas), and that CB isn't our #1 need, so you could draft and train a rookie CB. I maintain that's what we've already done with Youboty.

The element that needs to be taken into account is also how a player is going to be used and as the CB position in the Cover 2 the way we play it emphasizes press coverage and releasing the WR after 10-15 yards to the safeties and MLB playing the deep zone on passing downs and passing reads we will tend to value players like NC who (certainly while is big and talented enough to play the press well his highest and best use is in a different D scheme than the one we employ under Jauron) plays best in our old style soft coverage which allowed CBs to read plays and jump pass routes.

 

The Bills must have been extremely interested in Youbouty because his skills and pass play lend themselves to press coverage and despite him unfortunately missing camp because of the death of his Mom, he showed enough ability in practice when he finally joined the team they not only played him but were comfortable enough with him to start him in the second Jets game.

 

The manner in which we use the CB certainly would lead me to NOT allocate the Champ Bailey money the market likely requires to sign NC to a position where I likely can find a cheaper player to adequately make my defense work.

 

NC is a very good player who deserved to make the Pro Bowl when he got in. Further, i think he can deserve to be a Pro Bowler again if he is used as a punt returner for the team which signs him because he can make plays both as a properly used CB and return threat.

 

However, i think the Bills are correct to not build the team around one player's skills and it is quite fine with me to let this likely future star go.

[Pyrite Gal]

My record player has somehow got stuck -- it keeps repeating MLB Buster Davis FSU -- I'm telling you he is London Fletcher's replacement and I do think he could come in and play MLB right away.

 

 

Thanks to some good directing from Ramius I did check out the FSU site on Davis (kudos to SDS as well since it never fails to amaze me how he has set-up TSW as a great portal to football info). Davis does look like a great player but looking at his stats and seeing a description of the highlights of his work it does not look at all to me like he is likely replacement for the role our MLB plays in our version of the Cover 2.

 

What Davis seems to excel at is that he is a great tackler and FSU has employed his talent as a great blitzer rather than as a cover guy. F-B led the Bills in INTs last year and had more INTs than any other LB in football because we used him as a cover guy first and a tackler and a blitzer as an occaisional change of pace on passing down and distances.

 

Even without seeing him I am sure Davis is a stud, but his significant number of plays where he tackled the opponent for a loss and his 5 sacks (which equaled his more highly rated teammate OLB Timmons) indicate to me that on passing plays he has been used to attack the opponent whereas in our Cover 2 we utilized F-B as a coverage guy.

 

The only way i see us drafting Davis is if the braintrusts makes the judgment he can learn to be a cover guy and preferably use his demonstrated leadership skills to learn the D so he can call plays but I would say we need to tag F-B and then Davis would need to drop to the 2nd or more likely the third round to have us be able to take him without passing on getting a Guard we can use or a DT to help us stop the run (a better tackling LB than Fletch will not help alot to do this as our scheme calls for the MLB to play back and like F-B he will end up with a lot of solo tackles in our D backfield.