Are we becoming a mirror of the Detroit Lions?

[Bill from NYC]

Since the Buffalo Bills have taken DLinemen with our top pick in two drafts, we've used our top pick for Wideouts 4 times and Corners 5 times.

 

Since the Detroit Lions have taken DLinemen with their top pick in two drafts, they've used their top pick for Wideouts 4 times and Corners 3 times.

 

The Super Bowl teams, who not coinicdentally led the NFL in sacks this past season, broke down this way:

 

Wide Receivers:

 

4 Buff

4 Detroit

0 New England*

0 New York

 

Cornerback

 

5 Buff

4 Detroit

1 New England*

2 New York

 

If we continue the trend, I'm guessing we'll be looking for a new GM in 2009- Matt Millen should also be available and what a great fit that might be!

 

If we continue this trend, we will be very lucky to have a franchise at all.

 

The bottom line is that the Bills have for many years used their best draft resources on small players. Whittner, Parrish, Winfield, T. Smith, and Burress are examples. That is only in the first round. Day 1 of 06 (when combined with Simpson in the early 4th) is truly an example of idiocy, to the point that it is hard to believe that a team could be that stupid.

 

Truthfully, I liked day 1 of 07, and this is what I cling to in terms of hope. I saw Poz at RWS before he got hurt, and I promise you that this kid is a player. Lynch is a fine back and believe it or not, Edwards was a total steal in the late 3rd.

 

If you read my post to Badolbilz, I have snapped out of it. Count me as one who wants line help in round 1 but unlike you, I would be just as happy if they take a kid who can block.

 

Enjoy the holiday!

[Steely Dan]

I put this in the WR at #11 thread but it works here too.

 

ESPN has Limas Sweed listed as the 18th best player in the draft.

 

Glenn Dorsey (4) and Sedrick Ellis (6) are the only DT's listed higher overall.

 

Chris Long (2), Vernon Gholston (7), Derrick Harvey (15) and Phillip Merling (17) are the DE's rated ahead of him.

 

Dorsey and Ellis will not be there unless every team before Buffalo forgets that the first round is now only 10 minutes and forfeits their picks.

 

Chris Long and Vernon Gholston will be gone by #11 too. Derrick Harvey would strictly be a situational pass rusher due to his problems in run defense. Merling is not a great pass rusher and the Bills already have DE's that can tackle better than they can rush the passer. Anyway taking the 18th ranked guy over the 17th ranked guy isn't a stretch.

 

Draftcountdown.com has Sweed listed as the 12th best player in the draft with only Long, Dorsey, Gholston and Ellis listed higher.

 

Ontheclockdraft.com is very close to what ESPN has listed.

 

I don't see where taking Sweed is considered a huge reach.

 

IMO, the best guy for the Bills on DL is Jason Jones. He's the perfect backup player with a good upside. He can play inside at DT and outside at DE. He should be around in the third round.

 

My top three are Sweed, Godfrey and Jones.

[Tcali]

Since the Buffalo Bills have taken DLinemen with our top pick in two drafts, we've used our top pick for Wideouts 4 times and Corners 5 times.

 

Since the Detroit Lions have taken DLinemen with their top pick in two drafts, they've used their top pick for Wideouts 4 times and Corners 3 times.

 

The Super Bowl teams, who not coinicdentally led the NFL in sacks this past season, broke down this way:

 

Wide Receivers:

 

4 Buff

4 Detroit

0 New England*

0 New York

 

Cornerback

 

5 Buff

4 Detroit

1 New England*

2 New York

 

If we continue the trend, I'm guessing we'll be looking for a new GM in 2009- Matt Millen should also be available and what a great fit that might be!

the old built it from the outside in philosophy;) TD perfected it.

[BADOLBILZ]

Exactly. Its cleary Russ Brandon's fault we took Thomas Smith and Jeff Burris.

 

Russ Brandon hasn't overseen a draft yet, but the point you are trying to make is not a good one in this case. You see, every time the Bills get a new GM or HC they are given a free pass to make the same mistakes. And they have.

 

Remember stop the run with numbers? No fat guys? Was that Williams or Jauron? Remember when TD gave up on GW's defensive approach and signed Sam Adams(DT), Takeo Spikes(OLB) and Lawyer Milloy(S)? Or was that this offseason when they traded for Stroud(DT), signed Mitchell(OLB) and tried to sign McCree(s)? They spent the first two offseasons ridding themselves of vets to build a young team to fit their schemes, then relented and brought veterans BACK into the equation. A lack of direction? Yeah.

 

Everyone is impressed with Marv's first two drafts, but when you have a lot of holes it's easy to draft for need and end up with starting players. Donahoe's first draft looked like an all-time great, and his second looked pretty good after the first year as well. He could do no wrong. The team filled a lot of holes in the draft and free agency those first 3 offseasons. They then proceeded to reach for guys at need positions like Tim Anderson, Roscoe Parrish and Kevin Everett on subsequent day 1's in his last 3 drafts. When you get down to having just a few needs, your chance of picking the wrong player using a need-based approach increase because you narrow the pool of potential picks. Example: if the Bills didn't also need a corner during Donahoe's first draft, they might well have taken Kenyatta Walker instead of Clements. Walker was a bust.

 

Point is, when you have a lot of needs, a need-based drafting plan is not much different than a "best player available" plan. But long term, you should try to come away with the best players, period. That means not reaching for needs and continually using your top picks on players who line up away from the LOS(where games are still won). If you don't learn, you end up back to square one........with a lot of needs. Like the Buffalo Bills of the last decade.

 

The Levy/Brandon Bills are entering the same place where things started going very wrong for Donahoe's Bills and it's important, IMO, that the organization does not continue to repeat the same mistakes. Don't reach early, it leads to underperforming draft choices and is bad for the organization long term.

[obie_wan]

Russ Brandon hasn't overseen a draft yet, but the point you are trying to make is not a good one in this case. You see, every time the Bills get a new GM or HC they are given a free pass to make the same mistakes. And they have.

 

Remember stop the run with numbers? No fat guys? Was that Williams or Jauron? Remember when TD gave up on GW's defensive approach and signed Sam Adams(DT), Takeo Spikes(OLB) and Lawyer Milloy(S)? Or was that this offseason when they traded for Stroud(DT), signed Mitchell(OLB) and tried to sign McCree(s)? They spent the first two offseasons ridding themselves of vets to build a young team to fit their schemes, then relented and brought veterans BACK into the equation. A lack of direction? Yeah.

 

Everyone is impressed with Marv's first two drafts, but when you have a lot of holes it's easy to draft for need and end up with starting players. Donahoe's first draft looked like an all-time great, and his second looked pretty good after the first year as well. He could do no wrong. The team filled a lot of holes in the draft and free agency those first 3 offseasons. They then proceeded to reach for guys at need positions like Tim Anderson, Roscoe Parrish and Kevin Everett on subsequent day 1's in his last 3 drafts. When you get down to having just a few needs, your chance of picking the wrong player using a need-based approach increase because you narrow the pool of potential picks. Example: if the Bills didn't also need a corner during Donahoe's first draft, they might well have taken Kenyatta Walker instead of Clements. Walker was a bust.

 

Point is, when you have a lot of needs, a need-based drafting plan is not much different than a "best player available" plan. But long ter

 

m, you should try to come away with the best players, period. That means not reaching for needs and continually using your top picks on players who line up away from the LOS(where games are still won). If you don't learn, you end up back to square one........with a lot of needs. Like the Buffalo Bills of the last decade.

 

The Levy/Brandon Bills are entering the same place where things started going very wrong for Donahoe's Bills and it's important, IMO, that the organization does not continue to repeat the same mistakes. Don't reach early, it leads to underperforming draft choices and is bad for the organization long term.

 

 

What really compounds the problem is not only reaching for a need position (which you created yourself) but locking onto an injured player as well.

 

the bills absolutely need an impact player at #11 and they need production in 2008.

 

A WR takes 3 years to produce if healthy - go defense or OL at #11

[Steely Dan]

I agree. Best player approach without regard to needs!! Here's hoping Darren McFadden or Matt Ryan are available.

[BADOLBILZ]

If you read my post to Badolbilz, I have snapped out of it. Count me as one who wants line help in round 1 but unlike you, I would be just as happy if they take a kid who can block.

 

Enjoy the holiday!

 

It happens that this is a good draft for lineman. Plenty of them will bust as well, a few players will ride the hype of their own position being strong even. But just look at a guy like Red Bryant. In some drafts that have been DT weak, this guy would be getting mentioned as a potential first rounder by draftniks. Gabe Watson, anyone? But Bryant is more accurately viewed as a marginal DAY ONE pick in this draft, and I don't think many people would be surprised if he lasted until late in day 2 even. There are just a lot of good, promising DL in this draft that you don't need to reach for a guy with a lot of issues.

 

Steely Dan wants to point out that some people consider Sweed a top 20 overall player in this draft, but that's what happens when a draft is weak at the top at one position. Guys get squeezed up the draft board because draft observers know that some teams will reach for need and they want to AT LEAST be close in their mock drafts. A few weeks after draft day, nobody remembers where Mel Kiper or Ourlads had players rated. For their part, it's better to look good on draft day than on the field.

 

Sweed has a lot of potential and I like him, but I don't believe he is one of the top 20 players in this draft. No way. It's also worth factoring in that the school he comes from has produced a whole lot of busts and players of questionable determination. For Kelly's part, Oklahoma has had MORE than it's share of overhyped WR and DB prospects too.

[BADOLBILZ]

I agree. Best player approach without regard to needs!! Here's hoping Darren McFadden or Matt Ryan are available.

 

Tag this post and look at it in 3 years. If McFadden or Ryan were there, they would be better picks than Sweed or Kelly. Trent Edwards and Marshawn Lynch are no more now than JP Losman and Willis McGahee were a couple years ago.

 

In fact, if things stayed as they SHOULD be, the Bills would probably be thinking about getting an heir apparent for Travis Henry in here soon. Things change QUICKLY in the NFL, so you can't run the business like they won't by using draft day to fill immediate needs every year. A good organization should be able to fill future needs on draft day and immediate ones in free agency.

[Dan]

Tag this post and look at it in 3 years. If McFadden or Ryan were there, they would be better picks than Sweed or Kelly. Trent Edwards and Marshawn Lynch are no more now than JP Losman and Willis McGahee were a couple years ago.

 

In fact, if things stayed as they SHOULD be, the Bills would probably be thinking about getting an heir apparent for Travis Henry in here soon. Things change QUICKLY in the NFL, so you can't run the business like they won't by using draft day to fill immediate needs every year. A good organization should be able to fill future needs on draft day and immediate ones in free agency.

I'm a little confused. Are you suggesting we pick best player available, ie. a RB? Or best player available that fits a need?

[ax4782]

If we continue this trend, we will be very lucky to have a franchise at all.

 

The bottom line is that the Bills have for many years used their best draft resources on small players. Whittner, Parrish, Winfield, T. Smith, and Burress are examples. That is only in the first round. Day 1 of 06 (when combined with Simpson in the early 4th) is truly an example of idiocy, to the point that it is hard to believe that a team could be that stupid.

 

Um, what? So, when Day One of '06 landed three starters on D, that was an example of idiocy? Wow. Furthermore, I reiterate that the origninal poster is smoking crack. His numbers are all wrong. First, the Lions picked Four wideouts in four years. If you look at the draft history the Bills have taken 2 with a first round pick in the last thirteen. Further, the corners we have taken in the draft in the first round over the last, say, ten years, have been pretty good. Winfield and Clements were ballers, and Whitner is turning into one of the better SS in the league. Throw in Ko just for the sake of argument, and our backfield is pretty solid. I'm sorry that the FO eighteen years ago, and a completely different coaching staff couldn't turn Thomas Smith into a top corner for ten years. So what? The question is how has this staff done. So far I have liked what I've seen. And just to note, the Lions didn't give those receivers any other threats, including at QB. They're strategy was doomed to fail. They had no line and no RB and no QB. We aren't in that situation. We have at worst an above average line, a top RB and a young QB who looks a hell of a lot better than Joey Harrington ever did in the Lions' backfield.

 

So, perhaps if you took a minute to look at reality rather than agreeing with a person who is clearly stupid, you would realize it is only your statements about the situation that are pure idiocy.

[BADOLBILZ]

I'm a little confused. Are you suggesting we pick best player available, ie. a RB? Or best player available that fits a need?

 

It's not an absolute. When teams say they "don't stray far from their draft board" they are talking about balancing best player available with foreseeable need. Three years from now, IMO, McFadden and Ryan will be a superstar and a very good starting QB, respectively. Sweed and Kelly won't be stars. The draft is about today for bad organizations, but for good ones it's about tomorrow. The Bills have been a bad one for a long time now, it's time they start doing things right.

 

And I'm not usually big on drafting a RB in round 1, but McFadden is an extraordinary talent. He should be a more durable version of AD and would be the Bills most talented RB since OJ and most gifted athlete since Bruce Smith. Can't pass on him there, and it would set the Bills up to be a better running team which would be a GOOD thing considering the way the elements derailed their passing game late last fall. More simply put however, McFadden is a HR hitting gamebreaker, something this team is dying for. I like Lynch, and he's plenty good enough to be a RB on a championship contender, but he's not that kind of player.

 

Ryan is a very good QB prospect. I think he's going to be outstanding. Without a good QB, an organization is dead in the water. I like Edwards, but I don't think he is even close to a lock to be a success. He has a history of injuries and has a mediocre supporting cast that doesn't figure to be bolstered simply by overdrafting Sweed or Kelly.

 

Other than having a QB, the lines are the next most important positions to be strong at. And since it's hard to have a good QB without those, that's why you build from the inside out. This particular draft is strong on the lines and those guys are going to be there at #11. McFadden and Ryan will not.

[Dan]

It's not an absolute. When teams say they "don't stray far from their draft board" they are talking about balancing best player available with foreseeable need. Three years from now, IMO, McFadden and Ryan will be a superstar and a very good starting QB, respectively. Sweed and Kelly won't be stars. The draft is about today for bad organizations, but for good ones it's about tomorrow. The Bills have been a bad one for a long time now, it's time they start doing things right.

 

And I'm not usually big on drafting a RB in round 1, but McFadden is an extraordinary talent. He should be a more durable version of AD and would be the Bills most talented RB since OJ and most gifted athlete since Bruce Smith. Can't pass on him there, and it would set the Bills up to be a better running team which would be a GOOD thing considering the way the elements derailed their passing game late last fall. More simply put however, McFadden is a HR hitting gamebreaker, something this team is dying for. I like Lynch, and he's plenty good enough to be a RB on a championship contender, but he's not that kind of player.

 

Ryan is a very good QB prospect. I think he's going to be outstanding. Without a good QB, an organization is dead in the water. I like Edwards, but I don't think he is even close to a lock to be a success. He has a history of injuries and has a mediocre supporting cast that doesn't figure to be bolstered simply by overdrafting Sweed or Kelly.

 

Other than having a QB, the lines are the next most important positions to be strong at. And since it's hard to have a good QB without those, that's why you build from the inside out. This particular draft is strong on the lines and those guys are going to be there at #11. McFadden and Ryan will not.

But you seem to be contradicting yourself a little. If McFadden is there, we have to take him; but we have to build from the lines out. So which is it?

 

Another promlem with this line of thinking... If McFadden is the great player that people think and we select him; wat happens when there's another super great RB that's sure to be great? Do we take a RB for a 3rd year in a row?

 

Another problem I have is.... the Bills had Bruce and OJ, but won how many Supebowls with them? Sometimes its not about getting the most talent, its about getting the best team of players. The Pats* won a Superbowl with A. Smith as their running back. So, I would suggest that sometimes it the right player, not the best player, that should be selected.

[BADOLBILZ]

Um, what? So, when Day One of '06 landed three starters on D, that was an example of idiocy? Wow.

 

Three starters! Who did those guys beat out for the jobs?

 

Nobody.

 

Of those three, how many do the Bills think should be starting 2 years later?

 

One.

 

Hello Kawika Mitchell and Marlin McCree(well...almost)

 

(I'm assuming you don't mean day one of the 06 DRAFT, because McCargo and Youboty weren't starters last season even)

 

Synopsis: BFD

[BADOLBILZ]

But you seem to be contradicting yourself a little. If McFadden is there, we have to take him; but we have to build from the lines out. So which is it?

 

Another promlem with this line of thinking... If McFadden is the great player that people think and we select him; wat happens when there's another super great RB that's sure to be great? Do we take a RB for a 3rd year in a row?

 

Another problem I have is.... the Bills had Bruce and OJ, but won how many Supebowls with them? Sometimes its not about getting the most talent, its about getting the best team of players. The Pats* won a Superbowl with A. Smith as their running back. So, I would suggest that sometimes it the right player, not the best player, that should be selected.

 

You do build from the inside out, but when a great player becomes available you need to weigh that against other foreseeable needs. The Bills don't have a lot of starting calliber lineman in development, but they are good enough to at least entertain stepping up for a great skill player. I don't think anyone personnel man would question the fact that the Bills actually have a lot of good players. What they lack are gamebreakers.

 

Winning the Patriots way sounds good, but a Bill Belichick....Dick Jauron is not. If you're counting on Perry Fewell to scheme you to victory, I suggest you take a look at his gameplan last fall against the Pats in Buffalo. How many times do we play these guys each year? Isn't that supposed to make games CLOSER? The Bills are going to have to win like most teams, with good QB play, good line play and playmakers taking it to the house. Unfortunately for the Bills, Limas Sweed and Malcolm Kelly are more posession receivers than gamebreakers.

 

As for your concern about having too many RB's......2 RB systems are now very normal for successful organizations. And not just teams that don't like to run the ball. As it happens, both Lynch and McFadden both split carries in college and dominated. Ideally I'd rather put my chips elsewhere, but this team needs touchdowns and McFadden can bring them.

[Dan]

You do build from the inside out, but when a great player becomes available you need to weigh that against other foreseeable needs. The Bills don't have a lot of starting calliber lineman in development, but they are good enough to at least entertain stepping up for a great skill player. I don't think anyone personnel man would question the fact that the Bills actually have a lot of good players. What they lack are gamebreakers.

 

Winning the Patriots way sounds good, but a Bill Belichick....Dick Jauron is not. If you're counting on Perry Fewell to scheme you to victory, I suggest you take a look at his gameplan last fall against the Pats in Buffalo. How many times do we play these guys each year? Isn't that supposed to make games CLOSER? The Bills are going to have to win like most teams, with good QB play, good line play and playmakers taking it to the house. Unfortunately for the Bills, Limas Sweed and Malcolm Kelly are more posession receivers than gamebreakers.

 

As for your concern about having too many RB's......2 RB systems are now very normal for successful organizations. And not just teams that don't like to run the ball. As it happens, both Lynch and McFadden both split carries in college and dominated. Ideally I'd rather put my chips elsewhere, but this team needs touchdowns and McFadden can bring them.

I would agree we deffinitely need more play makers. But, I also think we need to fill a few more holes, specifically WR, TE, DT. I know we just got Stroud, but there's no guarantee he'll be the probowl player he was. So, as good a move as that was, I still view it as a position of need until he proves otherwise.

 

SO, I would suggest that we're 1 more year away from having all major holes filled and being able to pick the best player available, ie. a Mcfadden. Without another good WR, defefnses will continue to stack the box and make life tough on any RB. Simultaneously, without a solod DL, we'll never get the ball back and allow that play maker to do hs thing. Hence, I say get best available WR or DT at #11; shore up pthe remaining glaring weaknesses, then next year start taking the best guys we can get.

[BADOLBILZ]

I would agree we deffinitely need more play makers. But, I also think we need to fill a few more holes, specifically WR, TE, DT. I know we just got Stroud, but there's no guarantee he'll be the probowl player he was. So, as good a move as that was, I still view it as a position of need until he proves otherwise.

 

SO, I would suggest that we're 1 more year away from having all major holes filled and being able to pick the best player available, ie. a Mcfadden. Without another good WR, defefnses will continue to stack the box and make life tough on any RB. Simultaneously, without a solod DL, we'll never get the ball back and allow that play maker to do hs thing. Hence, I say get best available WR or DT at #11; shore up pthe remaining glaring weaknesses, then next year start taking the best guys we can get.

 

The problem with that thinking is assuming that Sweed or Kelly will actually fill that need. I don't believe they will. Roscoe Parrish never filled the need for a #2 receiver. Tim Anderson never filled the need for DT. Kevin Everett never even approached being a useful TE. The approach of drafting for need appeared to work the last two seasons because the Bills actually had so many holes to fill that they weren't straying too far from the draft board anyway. Reducing needs down to just 2 or 3 positions instead of 5-6 increases your odds of getting the wrong guy. Hence, the Kenyatta Walker example.

 

And beside that, next year promises new holes. What happens if Schobel and Denney start showing their ages(actually, Denney already has)? What if Stroud is a bust and McCargo doesn't step up. These are what I would consider foreseeable problems. That's to say nothing of attrition by unforeseeable injury. These are problems at the core, and Sweed and Kelly are not the kind of players that I think can cover up for those kind of issues. McFadden is a different story.

 

Like I said before, use free agency to fill immediate needs. Use the early portion of the draft to build your foundation and get your star players. If you stick close to that philosophy you will find that the immediate needs will be easier to fill in free agency...needs like #2 WR, OLB, FS, FB and such. Sweed and Kelly aren't QB's, lineman or gamebreakers(IMO) so they aren't that high on my list.

[OCinBuffalo]

Three starters! Who did those guys beat out for the jobs?

 

Nobody.

 

Of those three, how many do the Bills think should be starting 2 years later?

 

One.

 

Hello Kawika Mitchell and Marlin McCree(well...almost)

 

(I'm assuming you don't mean day one of the 06 DRAFT, because McCargo and Youboty weren't starters last season even)

 

Synopsis: BFD

Nothing like ignoring the 400 lb gorilla in the room....you guys wanna play the hindsight game, I'm right here for ya. It's like you guys don't understand that you can't turn an organization around, in any business, in a few months. It takes a few years in the NFL because they only get to hire 2-3 months out of each year unless you are doing what we had to last year and getting people off of the street.

 

Also, I honestly don't think you, BillNYC and AKC understand how many holes this team had after the 2004 season. Let's review: WE LOST TO THE STEELERS BACKUPS the last game of the season and thereby missed going to the playoffs. And, before you start talking about the (in)famous 7 game win streak, please remember that most of that was against candy assed teams. In 2005 the fact that our defense was either too old or too lame or un-talented was severely exposed, not to mention we had a terrible offensive line, and were led by a 2nd year player at QB, with Mularkey-ball play calling and absolutely horrid team chemistry.

 

As such, when Marv/DJ took over we had(I broke this down, but in the interest of brevity I deleted it ) : 7-9 viable starters.

 

That means we had a grand total of 7 starters, optimistically 9, and a whole s-load of holes. Can somebody remind me why any of us thought we weren't going to go 2-14 in 2005? I didn't, and I was crazy for doing it, if we are talking hindsight here. So we went 5-11 and that was the end of Donahoe, thank God!

 

Snap out of it: One draft of all O line or D line would have done exactly NOTHING to fix this mess. Instead, Levy went out and got guys like Mike Gandy and Peerless Price as stopgaps, and then drafted the best players he could get at each position, based on their value and his draft position. There was no way in hell one or two drafts was going to produce a whole new football team that was playoff ready, although if you remember, we were in it all the way to the Cleveland game last year, with 17 players on IR and a rookie QB. That's quite an accomplishment in and of itself.

 

That's a hell of a long way from losing to Steeler Backups at home with supposedly "star" veteran players and with the playoffs on the line. To make it simple, when you are at -9, getting back to 0 means you moved nine spaces forward.

 

Bringing up the Pats* drafts, when they already have pieces in place like a great safety, great lineman, great CBs, great O line and a probable HOF* QB, and are simply inserting one player to an already killer line up each year, is the weakest of arguments.

 

This ridiculous premise that when you are in our situation, somehow drafting all lineman will cure all evils is a farce at best. You wanna bring up the SB? Ok. No lineman was involved in perfectly throwing the ball, and no lineman was involved in making the catch on the fade route that won that f'ing game. And, they weren't involved on the previous passing play where the Pats* almost won that game = QB to WR, either. You wanna know why? Lineman are important, but they do NOT win games in the last 60 seconds, skill players do. End of story.

 

In two drafts, Marv and Co. have drafted 3 times the number of solid, contributing players that Donahoe did his whole time as GM. This is undeniable.

[Dibs]

From 1995-2004 we were strong at DT with Ted Washington, Pat Williams & Sam Adams.....prior to 1995 we had superbowl caliber teams back to 1990.........AKC is really only talking about the last 3 years, and guess what? We have drafted a DT in the first round & traded for a 3xprobowler DT in that time. The only time that the area seems to be totally ignored is the Donahue period where he let PW go without any reasonable plan of replacement.

 

To continually maintain that the only way one can achieve either good DTs or success in this league is by drafting DTs in the 1st round seems totally single minded.

[Dawgg]

and then drafted the best players he could get at each position, based on their value and his draft position.

 

This part's not accurate.

[BADOLBILZ]

Nothing like ignoring the 400 lb gorilla in the room....you guys wanna play the hindsight game, I'm right here for ya. It's like you guys don't understand that you can't turn an organization around, in any business, in a few months. It takes a few years in the NFL because they only get to hire 2-3 months out of each year unless you are doing what we had to last year and getting people off of the street.

 

Also, I honestly don't think you, BillNYC and AKC understand how many holes this team had after the 2004 season. Let's review: WE LOST TO THE STEELERS BACKUPS the last game of the season and thereby missed going to the playoffs. And, before you start talking about the (in)famous 7 game win streak, please remember that most of that was against candy assed teams. In 2005 the fact that our defense was either too old or too lame or un-talented was severely exposed, not to mention we had a terrible offensive line, and were led by a 2nd year player at QB, with Mularkey-ball play calling and absolutely horrid team chemistry.

 

As such, when Marv/DJ took over we had(I broke this down, but in the interest of brevity I deleted it ) : 7-9 viable starters.

 

That means we had a grand total of 7 starters, optimistically 9, and a whole s-load of holes. Can somebody remind me why any of us thought we weren't going to go 2-14 in 2005? I didn't, and I was crazy for doing it, if we are talking hindsight here. So we went 5-11 and that was the end of Donahoe, thank God!

 

Snap out of it: One draft of all O line or D line would have done exactly NOTHING to fix this mess. Instead, Levy went out and got guys like Mike Gandy and Peerless Price as stopgaps, and then drafted the best players he could get at each position, based on their value and his draft position. There was no way in hell one or two drafts was going to produce a whole new football team that was playoff ready, although if you remember, we were in it all the way to the Cleveland game last year, with 17 players on IR and a rookie QB. That's quite an accomplishment in and of itself.

 

That's a hell of a long way from losing to Steeler Backups at home with supposedly "star" veteran players and with the playoffs on the line. To make it simple, when you are at -9, getting back to 0 means you moved nine spaces forward.

 

Bringing up the Pats* drafts, when they already have pieces in place like a great safety, great lineman, great CBs, great O line and a probable HOF* QB, and are simply inserting one player to an already killer line up each year, is the weakest of arguments.

 

This ridiculous premise that when you are in our situation, somehow drafting all lineman will cure all evils is a farce at best. You wanna bring up the SB? Ok. No lineman was involved in perfectly throwing the ball, and no lineman was involved in making the catch on the fade route that won that f'ing game. And, they weren't involved on the previous passing play where the Pats* almost won that game = QB to WR, either. You wanna know why? Lineman are important, but they do NOT win games in the last 60 seconds, skill players do. End of story.

 

In two drafts, Marv and Co. have drafted 3 times the number of solid, contributing players that Donahoe did his whole time as GM. This is undeniable.

 

You must like reading your own posts, because you certainly didn't read the others in this thread. Nobody is saying just draft lineman. Don't reach to fill needs. But.......if you must, then consider the fact that Schobel and Denney aren't kids anymore. McCargo has proven nothing. Stroud is coming off two injury plagued seasons and a steroid suspension. Need may be a relative term. The OL can't run block to save their lives. There are no young reserve OL or DL who project as starters on this team. NONE. I wouldn't say the lines are covered.

 

As for rebuilding or turning a franchise around, if it takes 5 years to turn your franchise around nowadays, you might as well pack your sh*t and go if you are a GM or HC. Because you can't keep teams together, you have to be constantly re-working your roster. This nonsense that it takes many years to build a winner is horseschitt. In the 8 years since the Bills have been in the playoffs, many organizations have been up, had to be rebuilt and been back all while the Bills scuffle around on the outside. There is a reason why it is significant when they say the Bills are the only team in the AFC to not make a playoff appearance this decade(outside of Houston who wasn't in the league when the Bills drought began).