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Go w/ a CB in 1st rd?


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A few days ago, I looked through the 1st round DEs drafted since 2000 and came up with a fairly similar bust rate. Would it scare me away from drafting one? No. Every individual player must be evaluated on their own merits.

 

The word 'bust' is subjective, anyway. How can you call Ike Hilliard a bust? He's not a superstar by any stretch, but with 499 career receptions for almost 6,000 yards, he's far from a flop. Reggie Williams? A disappointment, sure, but the guy had 10 TD catches this season. There are a few others on that list I'm not so sure I agree with, either.

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A few days ago, I looked through the 1st round DEs drafted since 2000 and came up with a fairly similar bust rate. Would it scare me away from drafting one? No. Every individual player must be evaluated on their own merits.

 

The word 'bust' is subjective, anyway. How can you call Ike Hilliard a bust? He's not a superstar by any stretch, but with 499 career receptions for almost 6,000 yards, he's far from a flop. Reggie Williams? A disappointment, sure, but the guy had 10 TD catches this season. There are a few others on that list I'm not so sure I agree with, either.

 

I have no problem calling Ike a bust for a 1st rd pk. He has contributed throughout his career but not worth a 1st rd selection. Reggie has dropped an inordinate amount of catches and has struggled thus far in his career. Despite his 10 tds, Wilford was the #1 target, hence; Reggie is bust a for a high 1st rd selection until furthur notice. I see your point but this years crop of WR's is by no stretch of the imaganition worthy of a high 1st rd gamble.

 

Even if you wanted to apply the 'best avaible player' stratgey then there is still no WR that warrants an 11th pk. Conversly, CB Jenkins and McKelvin would merit such a high pk according to most rankings.

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Several things do not follow from the logic chain taken in this article.

 

1. The chances are higher certainly that a first round WR will more likely be a bust than a first round CB. However, the thing which drives choosing a specific player is not the relative bust stats of position but how the braintrust feels about specific players. If the braintrust believes one of the many WRs which seem available in this draft can do the job as the #2 with Evans they will pick him regardless of the bust rate of the position. Of the 2/2 of WRs taken in the 1st the original post labels as busts, for every single one of them the team that got him were pretty sure he was going to be among the 1/3 who were hits.

 

The Bills will feel the same way about their first pick be it a WR or a CB and the relative positional bust rates are interesting but far less important than the overall assessment of team needs and the level of belief in specific players.

 

2. The logic of this thread seems to simply ignore the fact that the way the Bills play the Cover 2, drafting a CB who has the talents to cover a WR all over the field is secondary to having a CB who does well reading plays, containing outside runs, doing press coverage in the short zone, doing well at the CB blitz and only then can do the change-up from time to time to cover a WR all over the field.

 

I agree the Bills need to increase their depth at CB, but it is fairly unlikely that the best depth for us is going to come from a rookie pick we expect to play starter. Some CBs do command a 1st round pick in this market or a big contract in FA. However, they usually command these resources because they are good at covering a player all over the field which we specifically will not be asking a CB to do very much. If you are trying to see who we want to improve our CB position, our MO has been to go for players like James, Webster and Kliwaukee Thomas rather than spend big bucks to keep a player like Clements.

 

3. The pressure put on the Bills to match-up with players like Moss and Welker actually speak against picking a CB in the 1st if you seriously believe this rookie is going to be more than a lip smackin morsel for the vets Welker or Moss. The Bills have done exactly the right thing to counter the NE threat which is to get an OLB from the NYG team which pressured Brady and put him on his butt and improve the DL by letting go the disappointing Triplett and picking up former Pro Bowler Stroud. The talent the Bills have at CB if important for challenging NE type WRs in the short-zone, but it simply is a fourth priority behind improving the DL (so that Brady is under more pressure and the Bills face fewer pass/run optional plays from an O than ran the ball well on us on 1st down), improving the LBs (again cutting down the run/pass option plays and more consistently pressuring a Brady), improving the safety play (as these are the players who actually have the high stakes coverage for us on WRs), and arguably getting a TE who helps us convert 3rd downs and simply keeps the D off the field is more valuable for stopping the WRs than worrying about the CB pick.

 

The original poster seems to adopt a faulty logic chain that the fact of greater WR failure adds up to instead picking a CB and then seems to ignore how the CB is used in our D.

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http://buf.scout.com/2/739162.html

 

64 percent bust rate to WR's drafted in 1st rd from 1997-2006! This is good empiricial evidence to the conclusion that Buff should go w/ a CB in 1st. I have to agree w/ Dunne assesment. The reality is that WR's are to precarious to gamble with and we still can pursue a good WR in 2nd. What say you?

 

"Bust" is of course nebulous.

 

CBs get more scrutiny than WRs, for they are often "on an island"...one-on-one more than a WR who shares attention with 5 other potential pass catchers.

 

So the better CBs are noted. A good college WR will benefit more from other members of the offense than a CB does of other defensive players.

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Busts are caused by 21 year old kids getting paid millions of dollars. In the first round most of these guys get enough money to last them a life time. What incentive is there after that? Everyone is different but i attribute most of hte first round busts are caused by this problem. A NFL club isn't going to draft a guy in the first round with poor talent. Its easy to judge a guy on talent. It's hard to get inside the guys head to see if money is the only driving force.

 

A former lineman for the Packers said it best. "If you play Football for the money it will disappoint you."

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Busts are caused by 21 year old kids getting paid millions of dollars. In the first round most of these guys get enough money to last them a life time. What incentive is there after that? Everyone is different but i attribute most of hte first round busts are caused by this problem. A NFL club isn't going to draft a guy in the first round with poor talent. Its easy to judge a guy on talent. It's hard to get inside the guys head to see if money is the only driving force.

 

A former lineman for the Packers said it best. "If you play Football for the money it will disappoint you."

 

There was a recent thread about who would be the bigger success - J. Russell or Trend Edwards.

 

Russell got a 11 million signing bonus. He could just buy U.S. Savings Bonds and probably get six figures each year to live on forever, without touching the capital... :pirate:

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