It's been an ST draft since Rd. 3

[Pyrite Gal]

We went with a very good value pick in Rd 1. Took a definite position need in Rd.2 and filled a rotation/position need in Rd. 3.

 

However, since then it appears Bobby April has taken over the direction of the braintrust and the players taken looked to be more geared toward rebuilding our ST (a definite team need) than worrying about any position gaps. Specifically:

 

Corner- He simply looks to be too short not to get picked on a lot (he is even two inches shorter than Greer whose stature many have questioned) particularly on fade routes in the redzone. However, he has great athleticism and seen in his leaping ability and ball skills. A pick of a CB was reasonable (at least somewhat) when a potentially elite talent McKelvin dropped to #11, but it seems fairly outrageous to devote the 4th round pick to a CBwho at best will be 5th on the depth chart. I suspect he was taken with ST contribution in mind big time (virtually all second day picks are gonna make their mark on ST if anywhere their rookie years). This player almost certainly will need to develop into a go-to guy on ST the long-run as he seems to have little upside or potential for us as a position player since not only is it doubtful he will have a growth spurt, his biggest ST problem seems to be question are raised about him making arm tackles. The can fortunately be trained to tackle properly though he will not be trained to grow.

 

Fine- A TE is what people wanted but Fine seems like a clear prospect who will need to be trained up big time if he is to be a position player for us. The lowdown on him I read indicates he did some good ST play in college and I suspect this probably led to his drafting and will be the focus of his initial work as a Bill this year.

 

Bowen- Clearly will need to bulk up bigtime and in no way seems a starting prospect. However, the write-ups also indicate good ST chops for him.

 

Bobby April is likely a happy man right now as often it is the UDFAs which is where a lot of the ST fixtures are found.

[marauderswr80]

This is a good post...........

 

Does it make it a nice draft if the special teams is tops in the league again?

 

The last few picks has me with a question mark over my head

[Nanker]

This is a good post...........

 

Does it make it a nice draft if the special teams is tops in the league again?

 

The last few picks has me with a question mark over my head

 

Naw. Everybody knows STs done mean shite. Everybody.

We continue to have a glaring need at Head Coach and that hasn't been addressed in the Draft yet.

[Sisyphean Bills]

Fairly likely, they were targeting Lowery with that pick and the Jets hosed them. Oh well. That's the draft.

 

I know it is an old wife's tale that when you play the cover 2, you don't actually need guys that can cover and all; but, can we admit that the *s do not play a staight 2-back, 2-WR set? Can we admit that the *s absolutely and completely dominated the Bills Cover 2 D in men against barely weened boys fashion? The Bills simply had to get some guys in the secondary that can play the position and have some natural instincts. The cutesy collection of projects and papering over holes with guys who's instincts were basically, "sh--! What the !@#$ was that?" just didn't cut it. Assuming you actually want to compete against the *s, that is.

[lets_go_bills]

You're way off. You land starters in rounds one, two, and three. The rest of the draft is usually depth players. It's because these guys are lower round that they will begin their careers on ST.

 

Other than CB and WR, what other starting positions do we have vacant? None. And don't say FB.

[Pyrite Gal]

Fairly likely, they were targeting Lowery with that pick and the Jets hosed them. Oh well. That's the draft.

 

I know it is an old wife's tale that when you play the cover 2, you don't actually need guys that can cover and all; but, can we admit that the *s do not play a staight 2-back, 2-WR set? Can we admit that the *s absolutely and completely dominated the Bills Cover 2 D in men against barely weened boys fashion? The Bills simply had to get some guys in the secondary that can play the position and have some natural instincts. The cutesy collection of projects and papering over holes with guys who's instincts were basically, "sh--! What the !@#$ was that?" just didn't cut it. Assuming you actually want to compete against the *s, that is.

It certainly does not hurt that they got McKelvin with their #1.

 

However, a #1 is well-spent on McKelvin if you use a D scheme which maximizes his abilities (can cover all over the field and run with WRs going deep among other things that made him the first CB taken and almost an elite talent (which I define as being a good enough player to command a top10 choice).

 

However, in our case, we run a Cover 2 as a base scheme and Fewell estimates we run a traditional Cover 2 only 25% of plays. In this scheme rather than covering a WR all over the field the CB turns them over to the safeties after the short zone. We also run a version of the Cover 2 generally known as the Tampa 2 in which the MLB covers the deep middle and the safeties need only worry about a 1/3 of the deep field. When one also eliminates plays in the redzone where there is not enough field to even go deep and we run a different scheme or short yardage where the opponent is almost certainly not going deep, there simply are only a few plays each game where we are running a scheme which plays to McKelvin's strengths (or more important for our purposes where a CB of far less than elite talent like a Greer or McGee can be expected to play CB adequately in our D.

 

In general if we want to make the highest best use of McKelvin we will need to change how we employ our base scheme to allow him to cover WRs all over the field. This is well and good for McKelvin, but it does raise a question of whether our other defenders who were acquired for and practice the Cover 2 will do well in a D which gets altered to take advantage of what McKelvin can do.

 

Its not at all that we can get by with bad CBs because we run a Cover 2. However, what is the case is that players who were never good enough to start at CB under the old system like Greer, or CBs who clearly were far less talented than Clements can actually play adequately in a Cover 2.

 

McKelvin was not a bad athlete to acquire. However, it was likely a waste of resources as it definitely would take a #11 pick to acquire McKelvin but actually a lower pick and less accomplished player at the Greer level can do an adequate job with this D.

 

I wish we had been able to pull off a trade which allowed us to move down in the round (or even out of the 1st round) and let us acquire some more 2nd and 3rd rounders in compensation. Its all woulda/coulda/shoulda but it is easy for me to see if we could have made such a deal we could have acquired another WR to compete with Hardy (a Jackson or Tweed for example) and also have gotten a Conner or other players to make us a better team.

 

We did not and this is reality and we will have to do well with the value pick in the first, hope that the behavior issues in Hardy's college life were due to immaturity, and that a CB like Corner turns out to be an ST stud because it seems quite unlikely that we are gonna get away with a 5' 9'' CB against folks like Moss/Welker.

 

Is this an indictment of the professional with the Bills. No because it would not be a very good one. Who knows what trades they were offered. As far as football knowledge they have forgotten more than us fans will ever learn about the game.

 

However, us fans are entitled to our opinions (no matter how fact-free they are) and actually NFL professional make dumb choices like picking Mike Williams or trading their entire draft for Wicky Williams. The Bills braintrust is far from immune to criticism of this draft and in fact this business should welcome it.

 

It sells far more tickets than people not caring enough to be disturbed by the draft.

[Oneonta Buffalo Fan]

This is a good post...........

 

Does it make it a nice draft if the special teams is tops in the league again?

 

The last few picks has me with a question mark over my head

But they can be used for adding great depth.

[ndirish1978]

I posted the same thing in the draft thread this afternoon, though not as eloquently of course

[The Cincinnati Kid]

This draft was a good draft for the Bills, but I think that the initial post is correct. LOTS OF ST PLAYERS.

[Sisyphean Bills]

It certainly does not hurt that they got McKelvin with their #1.

 

However, a #1 is well-spent on McKelvin if you use a D scheme which maximizes his abilities (can cover all over the field and run with WRs going deep among other things that made him the first CB taken and almost an elite talent (which I define as being a good enough player to command a top10 choice).

 

However, in our case, we run a Cover 2 as a base scheme and Fewell estimates we run a traditional Cover 2 only 25% of plays. In this scheme rather than covering a WR all over the field the CB turns them over to the safeties after the short zone. We also run a version of the Cover 2 generally known as the Tampa 2 in which the MLB covers the deep middle and the safeties need only worry about a 1/3 of the deep field. When one also eliminates plays in the redzone where there is not enough field to even go deep and we run a different scheme or short yardage where the opponent is almost certainly not going deep, there simply are only a few plays each game where we are running a scheme which plays to McKelvin's strengths (or more important for our purposes where a CB of far less than elite talent like a Greer or McGee can be expected to play CB adequately in our D.

 

In general if we want to make the highest best use of McKelvin we will need to change how we employ our base scheme to allow him to cover WRs all over the field. This is well and good for McKelvin, but it does raise a question of whether our other defenders who were acquired for and practice the Cover 2 will do well in a D which gets altered to take advantage of what McKelvin can do.

 

Its not at all that we can get by with bad CBs because we run a Cover 2. However, what is the case is that players who were never good enough to start at CB under the old system like Greer, or CBs who clearly were far less talented than Clements can actually play adequately in a Cover 2.

 

McKelvin was not a bad athlete to acquire. However, it was likely a waste of resources as it definitely would take a #11 pick to acquire McKelvin but actually a lower pick and less accomplished player at the Greer level can do an adequate job with this D.

 

I wish we had been able to pull off a trade which allowed us to move down in the round (or even out of the 1st round) and let us acquire some more 2nd and 3rd rounders in compensation. Its all woulda/coulda/shoulda but it is easy for me to see if we could have made such a deal we could have acquired another WR to compete with Hardy (a Jackson or Tweed for example) and also have gotten a Conner or other players to make us a better team.

 

We did not and this is reality and we will have to do well with the value pick in the first, hope that the behavior issues in Hardy's college life were due to immaturity, and that a CB like Corner turns out to be an ST stud because it seems quite unlikely that we are gonna get away with a 5' 9'' CB against folks like Moss/Welker.

 

Is this an indictment of the professional with the Bills. No because it would not be a very good one. Who knows what trades they were offered. As far as football knowledge they have forgotten more than us fans will ever learn about the game.

 

However, us fans are entitled to our opinions (no matter how fact-free they are) and actually NFL professional make dumb choices like picking Mike Williams or trading their entire draft for Wicky Williams. The Bills braintrust is far from immune to criticism of this draft and in fact this business should welcome it.

 

It sells far more tickets than people not caring enough to be disturbed by the draft.

 

While I appreciate the attempt at argumentum verbosium, the fact is that the Bills drafted 3 CBs in this draft. That's 30% of their picks on a position that accounts for less than 10% of their final roster positions. Not only that, but 50% of their top 4 picks were expended on the position. This is after they went out and signed a CB in free agency. It seems plenty clear that the Bills brass does not share the opinion that reloading the CB position on this roster is a "waste of resources". And, yeah, I think they understand the defensive scheme they use.

[Lurker]

We continue to have a glaring need at Head Coach and that hasn't been addressed in the Draft yet.

Not much depth in this year's crop, unfortunately...

[Gotta Dream]

Nothing wrong with a great Special Teams. It's obvious we don't have the talent YET of the elite teams. But Special Teams can be a great equalizer. All those that are complaining about McKelvin being a first rounder will be cheering when he takes it to the house. By the way, check out the last punt return in this clip....

 

He's going to be exciting folks! Could he be our Devin Hester?

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWT3IIlyZPM

[Geno Smith's Arm]

It certainly does not hurt that they got McKelvin with their #1.

 

However, a #1 is well-spent on McKelvin if you use a D scheme which maximizes his abilities (can cover all over the field and run with WRs going deep among other things that made him the first CB taken and almost an elite talent (which I define as being a good enough player to command a top10 choice).

 

However, in our case, we run a Cover 2 as a base scheme and Fewell estimates we run a traditional Cover 2 only 25% of plays. In this scheme rather than covering a WR all over the field the CB turns them over to the safeties after the short zone. We also run a version of the Cover 2 generally known as the Tampa 2 in which the MLB covers the deep middle and the safeties need only worry about a 1/3 of the deep field. When one also eliminates plays in the redzone where there is not enough field to even go deep and we run a different scheme or short yardage where the opponent is almost certainly not going deep, there simply are only a few plays each game where we are running a scheme which plays to McKelvin's strengths (or more important for our purposes where a CB of far less than elite talent like a Greer or McGee can be expected to play CB adequately in our D.

 

In general if we want to make the highest best use of McKelvin we will need to change how we employ our base scheme to allow him to cover WRs all over the field. This is well and good for McKelvin, but it does raise a question of whether our other defenders who were acquired for and practice the Cover 2 will do well in a D which gets altered to take advantage of what McKelvin can do.

 

Its not at all that we can get by with bad CBs because we run a Cover 2. However, what is the case is that players who were never good enough to start at CB under the old system like Greer, or CBs who clearly were far less talented than Clements can actually play adequately in a Cover 2.

 

McKelvin was not a bad athlete to acquire. However, it was likely a waste of resources as it definitely would take a #11 pick to acquire McKelvin but actually a lower pick and less accomplished player at the Greer level can do an adequate job with this D.

 

I wish we had been able to pull off a trade which allowed us to move down in the round (or even out of the 1st round) and let us acquire some more 2nd and 3rd rounders in compensation. Its all woulda/coulda/shoulda but it is easy for me to see if we could have made such a deal we could have acquired another WR to compete with Hardy (a Jackson or Tweed for example) and also have gotten a Conner or other players to make us a better team.

 

We did not and this is reality and we will have to do well with the value pick in the first, hope that the behavior issues in Hardy's college life were due to immaturity, and that a CB like Corner turns out to be an ST stud because it seems quite unlikely that we are gonna get away with a 5' 9'' CB against folks like Moss/Welker.

 

Is this an indictment of the professional with the Bills. No because it would not be a very good one. Who knows what trades they were offered. As far as football knowledge they have forgotten more than us fans will ever learn about the game.

 

However, us fans are entitled to our opinions (no matter how fact-free they are) and actually NFL professional make dumb choices like picking Mike Williams or trading their entire draft for Wicky Williams. The Bills braintrust is far from immune to criticism of this draft and in fact this business should welcome it.

 

It sells far more tickets than people not caring enough to be disturbed by the draft.

 

 

Over-intellectualized bullsh*t.

All theory.

If he is an exceptional player, he will find a way to impact games, even if if is by dissuading teams from passing in his direction.

Perhaps they could have chosen a player of a different position, perhaps he isn't the player they think he is, but an exceptional player will find a way to impact games regardless of the scheme. If he controls an area of the field, he is having an impact.

 

Plus he is a dynamite returner.

[Pyrite Gal]

While I appreciate the attempt at argumentum verbosium, the fact is that the Bills drafted 3 CBs in this draft. That's 30% of their picks on a position that accounts for less than 10% of their final roster positions. Not only that, but 50% of their top 4 picks were expended on the position. This is after they went out and signed a CB in free agency. It seems plenty clear that the Bills brass does not share the opinion that reloading the CB position on this roster is a "waste of resources". And, yeah, I think they understand the defensive scheme they use.

Perhaps

[Sisyphean Bills]

Perhaps

FWIW, I get the point that there are many ways to build a team. Polian (and Butler now Smith) is a BPA sort of guy, and he emphasizes getting good talent in the trenches and a set of triplets on offense. Parcells builds from the inside out, emphasizing strong lines and then plugging in the skills pieces around that foundation; he also seems to be able to find diamonds in the rough as far as QBs. (That's easier to do when you can physically dominate the LOS.) Belichick is a front 7 defensive guy -- strong DL and LBs are the core of his team and he's been fortunate enough to ride the HoF QB that fell out of the sky on his "genius" head.

 

Focusing on the lines and QB in the draft makes sense because those positions are foundational and take up nearly 50% of your starting lineup. Finding very good WRs, RBs, and DBs in free agency or even off-the-street is not unreasonable. Finding a franchise QB or LT is impossible on the other hand.

 

Our mastermind is Dick Jauron, a defensive secondary coach. It's not a total shock then that he has focused heavily on defense and particularly the secondary since taking control. While we know that the guys mentioned in the first paragraph have had success with their formulas, the jury is still out (being charitable) on Jauron. He's had 1 winning season, so it has not worked well so far; however, the optimists will say "give him time". We'll see.

 

As it stands, I see this as Jauron rolling the dice that his very thin lines are going to hold up and that Edwards is his franchise QB that fell out of the sky on his head. On the other hand, the holes in the starting lineup do dictate what is essential to a degree. Fixing the passing game on offense and defense was an obvious major necessity.

[tombstone56]

We went with a very good value pick in Rd 1. Took a definite position need in Rd.2 and filled a rotation/position need in Rd. 3.

 

However, since then it appears Bobby April has taken over the direction of the braintrust and the players taken looked to be more geared toward rebuilding our ST (a definite team need) than worrying about any position gaps. Specifically:

 

Corner- He simply looks to be too short not to get picked on a lot (he is even two inches shorter than Greer whose stature many have questioned) particularly on fade routes in the redzone. However, he has great athleticism and seen in his leaping ability and ball skills. A pick of a CB was reasonable (at least somewhat) when a potentially elite talent McKelvin dropped to #11, but it seems fairly outrageous to devote the 4th round pick to a CBwho at best will be 5th on the depth chart. I suspect he was taken with ST contribution in mind big time (virtually all second day picks are gonna make their mark on ST if anywhere their rookie years). This player almost certainly will need to develop into a go-to guy on ST the long-run as he seems to have little upside or potential for us as a position player since not only is it doubtful he will have a growth spurt, his biggest ST problem seems to be question are raised about him making arm tackles. The can fortunately be trained to tackle properly though he will not be trained to grow.

 

Fine- A TE is what people wanted but Fine seems like a clear prospect who will need to be trained up big time if he is to be a position player for us. The lowdown on him I read indicates he did some good ST play in college and I suspect this probably led to his drafting and will be the focus of his initial work as a Bill this year.

 

Bowen- Clearly will need to bulk up bigtime and in no way seems a starting prospect. However, the write-ups also indicate good ST chops for him.

 

Bobby April is likely a happy man right now as often it is the UDFAs which is where a lot of the ST fixtures are found.

 

good post pyrite,, but i think mckelvin punt returns played big part in his choice too

[K-9]

Cox, in addition to ST opportunities, will be given a chance to make the team as a S. Bills are REALLY thing there and this draft was thin at the position. So, it's really 2 CBs and a S in this draft.

 

GO BILLS!!!

[Pyrite Gal]

good post pyrite,, but i think mckelvin punt returns played big part in his choice too

Thanks and I think you are right on target about one of the large selling points for McKelvin being his kick returning.

 

However, as I have let this marinate it simply brings up some questions for me:

 

1. How do we utilize the great return skills shown by McKelvin when we have two of the best return guys in the league hauling back punts and KRs for us?

 

I am curious if anyone has heard or has any thoughts on this. Having depth behind these two return guys is great (particularly since both like most humans are not immune to missing a game due to injury) but this would seem like a marginal reason to be enthralled with a 1st round expenditure.

 

2. Part of the great pluses to McKelvin's talents are a demonstrated ability to cover like a blanket WRs all over the field. However, in the Cover 2 as we run it, the CB is not asked for to cover WRs all over the field. Are we going to require McKelvin to simply give up one of the best parts of his game (Jauron's previous MO with folks like CB theftmeister Dre Bly who vocally whined about playing CB in a Jauron designed D) or is McKelvin good enough we alter the D application so that we do more than have the CB cover deep from time to time?

 

My sense is that Jauron/Fewell likely do no stand their scheme on its head and simply require McKelvin to give up one of his strengths.

 

3. Hopefully, folks who see McKelvin as revolutionizing our ability to match up with Welker/Moss/Brady are right but my guess is that they are deluding themselves. Some are stupid enough to interpret my pointing to the limitations or rookies as some flat out assertion that all rookies are dumb. The only thing dumb about this assertion is that interpretation of it. All I am saying is that rookies are not vets (yet) and that what you learn to become a vet is actually important to performance.

 

We see this all the time from every NFL player saying they did not realize how fast the pro game is compared to college play until they actually got to the NFL to us seeing tons of players lose a step as they get older but maintain their effectiveness because experience allows them to accomplish the same feats with fewer steps. Moss/Welker are almost certainly licking their chops hoping that the Bills have the temerity to ask McKelvin to cover them one on one. If we do they will likely help McKelvin become a vet by beating the snot out of him on pass plays.

 

Will having McKelvin make a difference for our coverage? Sure, it means Dustin Fox will not see the field as a back-up to McGee and if we are lucky Youbouty gets beaten out at nickel (by Greer if McKelvin beats out Greer for our second RB starter slot). However, against NE we will have to run the same zone package with the CB doing press coverage on Moss/Welker and us needing to do go reads for the coverage to hand him off to the safeties on the wing and Pos over the middle deep when the CB releases them. If the WR finds a seam on the handoff and Brady reads the same seam we are cooked.

 

The key to our Cover 2 or a Tampa 2 working remains the same which is our DL and sometimes the LBs getting enough pressure on Brady to put him on his can or pressure him enough that it is hard for him to find the WR in the seam. The idea that McKelvin is going to make a difference in our coverage on very good receivers by himself is nice but a likely flight of fancy.

 

4. What parts of McKelvin's game does he need to work on?

 

Does anyone out there want to claim he is perfect in every way?

 

He is not (and if he were even close to it he likely would have been what I consider an "elite" player meaning he forces teams to pick him in the first ten picks. He may well be close as the Bills seemed to have honestly had him in the top 10 on their board. However, the word I hear is that there are a couple of things he needs to work on. i do not know if these assessments are true so I am curious what others have heard. Specifically,

 

A. There appear to be some questions about his ability to get INTs which apparently stem from him having a few bad drops of passes he got his hands on. Is this true?

 

It does not make a lot of sense to me as he clearly is a great return guy and routinely fields kicks indicating some ball handling skills. Further, I have heard some his alleged drops excused because it was because of his outstanding coverage that he even got a hand on some thrown balls and they were apparently difficult INTs to begin with. Is he another Antoine Winfield in that he can cover like a demon but has trouble translating great coverage into INTs.

 

B. There have also been some questions raised about his tackling ability or willingness. Is this true and are there questions here?

 

I can see how a desire to break-up or INT the pass might lead to a player passing on focusing on making tackles. However, since our scheme is only going to require short zone coverage, this puts a premium on his ability to press cover and also to contain the outside run. I have little doubt he can press cover but it will be nice to hear confirmation of him as a savage or at least good tackler.

 

As these questions get answered in OTAs and camp I look forward to him being a fixture on our D (though unless his college play called on him to develop skills making good reads it would not shock me if this #11 choice actually needs some pro seasoning before he can start for the Bills.