Matt Birk

[FutureBillsGM]

Good thought. I think TE's, like WR's, take a few years to develop too (although Carlson sure looked good this year). We can easily get a TE in free agency who is cheap and an upgrade from Royal. Then we keep Fine and Schouman to see if they can develop.

 

I don't understand why DE's take time to develop, but now that you say that, I can't think of many rookie DE's of late making immediate impacts (except kearse).

 

Situational speed edge rushers have made an immediate impactat the DE position and this is exactly what we need. Many of these guys have been found in the later rounds too. For example Elvis Dumervill with Denever who had 8.5 sacks in his first year and 12.5 in hissecond.

[Tortured Soul]

Is there any reason to think Birk would want to leave Minnesota?

[lets_go_bills]

I would LOVE to see Peppers or even Suggs with the Bills next yea, but I have serious doubts that we will pony up enough money to get either of them. But what about Birk. If we could sign him to a two year deal with incentives, is this a possibility?

 

I would love Birk here. He is just what we need, a saavy, nasty, intelligent, and proven Center. He would really bring the line together. He would have a tremendous impact.

[JStranger76]

I think it could be possible since Minny has been grooming Sullivan to take over,so it could happen. I wouldn't mind going after Birk AND going center in the 2nd round. It would give that guy time to develope and he could push Dockery and Butler until Birk hangs em up. You never know who could get injured anyways and having depth on the O-line would be a new welcome warm and fuzzy feeling if you ask me.

[billybob]

I like Jason Brown he's big with a nasty streak and young.

[Ray]

Tim Graham has both the Bills and Dolphins going after Birk. That would be a great signing for the Bills.

[DazedandConfused]

Pyrite gal, is that you?

Yep

[DazedandConfused]

Gotta disagree with you. The reason top teams stay on top is their ability to repeatedly draft well to replace the FAs that get enticed away by the "if we sign this guy who's been a star on a winning team, it'll put us over the top" wanna-bes.

 

The draft's a crapshoot, but if you manage it well, it's also a cheap labor pool that allows good teams to stay good.

I do not disagree at all with your basic argument which seems to argue if a team is good they will be good. The draft is a crapshoot exactly because most teams do not manage it well and this is difficult to do. The simple stats are that though the conventional wisdom is a 1st round pick should be a 1st year starter, the reality is that only a little bit over 50% are and in fact there is a heavy bias among these 1st year starters to the first 10 picks (my definition of an elite player). These 1st ten picks tend to start because they are the truly elite and the teams with the first ten picks are generally not your consistent winners but really bad teams.

 

If you look at the teams that continually do well, strong drafting teams like Indy where Polian has done a great job using draft picks to build his OL, but again how easy is this to do and even if you do, Indy took a very very long time before they finally won it all so they prove if anything that being a great drafting team in no way is a guarantee of SB success.

 

Again, my basic argument is not that the draft should be ignored. it should not as good players have to come from somewhere and good players tend to be drafted so the draft must be a place where a team must go.

 

My argument is that it is football foolhardy for a team to focus on any one aspect of player acquisition as being the end all and be all whether this is the silly approach of figuring you are gonna buy your way there with FAs or the foolhardy approach that merely by emphasizing the draft you will win it all.

 

The irony of this thought is that actually, the last 3 years of Bills drafting under the current regime as actually been pretty top notch as it continually has produced players who start and comfortably command their positions on the team and within the league even in comparison to other players. However, this pretty good drafting simply has produced records of 7-9 three years in a row.

[OrangeJuiceSimpson]

I heard a rumor that we are not going after any free agents, and were planning on skipping the draft completely. It has something to do with continuity.

 

Hah awesome..Peters will also sign an extension for the same amount as his current contract for continuities sake.

[billnutinphoenix]

Tim Graham has both the Bills and Dolphins going after Birk. That would be a great signing for the Bills.

 

 

Where would you rather play??? Buffalo will need to pay an awfully high price for him...It won't happen!

[Nightcrawler]

Not Matt Birk. If we get anyone on offense, get Jordan Gross, a consistent studly OT who also can play guard and is a younger than Birk.

 

On defense, forget Crowell. Karlos Dansby, OLB of the Cardinals. Check out the age and stats. Check out the game against Falcons. Second leading tackler for his team, and he stopped a 3rd and 1, broke up a pass over the middle and took out the FB creating space for his DL teammate to make the sack on Matt Ryan for a safety.

 

Focus on the draft. No one comes to Buffalo unless they are on perennial loser (Bengals--Takeo Spikes), get a ridiculous amount of money (Dockery) or they are an average-to-good but not great player looking for more opportunity (Langston Walker-Raiders, Kawika Mitchell, Giants.)

 

With that in mind, Dansby is a legitimate shot. Jordan Gross is a huge outside possibility.

[BuffaloBill]

Fair point. But how many FA signings do we hit on? I think we missed recently on guys like Dockery and Posey.

 

Look at a team like the Panthers-- great line and great running game, all largely built from the draft.

 

 

To be succesful you have to be good at both FA acqusitions and the draft. Draft core players and acquire role players through FA.

[DazedandConfused]

Not Matt Birk. If we get anyone on offense, get Jordan Gross, a consistent studly OT who also can play guard and is a younger than Birk.

 

On defense, forget Crowell. Karlos Dansby, OLB of the Cardinals. Check out the age and stats. Check out the game against Falcons. Second leading tackler for his team, and he stopped a 3rd and 1, broke up a pass over the middle and took out the FB creating space for his DL teammate to make the sack on Matt Ryan for a safety.

 

Focus on the draft. No one comes to Buffalo unless they are on perennial loser (Bengals--Takeo Spikes), get a ridiculous amount of money (Dockery) or they are an average-to-good but not great player looking for more opportunity (Langston Walker-Raiders, Kawika Mitchell, Giants.)

 

With that in mind, Dansby is a legitimate shot. Jordan Gross is a huge outside possibility.

I would not be so sure about not Birk.

 

It seems pretty clear that rather than youth we need leadership and experience on the OL. At 32, Birk is by no means ancient by OL standards. Even though he in fact did lose a season to injury he has come back from it and played 16 games a couple or even several seasons since the injury.

 

In addition, center is such a clear need for this team after they declared the Fowler experiment over and given Preston's meltdown at the end of the half in a late game this year.

 

I think Birk fits this team far better than Gross.

[Thurman#1]

'cause of the money?

 

 

Next...

 

 

I like the computer thing you're doing. Your post is obviously wrong, but I like the computer thing. Of course they come largely for the money. That's what drives about 90% of FAs, as always. Only a few Bruschi-like types take salary cuts to go places they like.

 

What a surprise that football players are pretty much like the rest of us.

[Thurman#1]

However with this obvious proviso, the draft is simply overrated. It is helped by the tremendous marketing which the NFL and ESPN provide for the draft as a tool for fantasy football fans.

 

Yep, a Peyton Manning does come along every once in a while, but the best players are more like the extreme of Tom Brady who is most notable from a draft perspective in that 30 over teams had a shot at him 5-6 times and simply passed on taking what has turned out to be the best player in football for several years until he got hurt.

 

 

Of course nobody you draft is guaranteed. But you're looking at it wrong. Look at the successful teams and you'll see that they are usually built largely through the draft and much less so through FA. How often do the Pats pick up FAs? Small level guys for depth, yes, but their core players were 80 - 90% drafted. It's not marketing, it's fact. The Colts too. Our good 90s teams too. The Panthers too. Giants too. The list goes on and on.

 

The draft is huge, and the better you do at it, the better your team is with very very few exceptions.

[Thurman#1]

The thing that I wonder is which position in the draft is known as being most NFL ready for our positions of need. Can a Center come in and be immediately effective, a TE, or a DE. To me it seems as if DE is very difficult to make an immediate impact from college to the pros. Maybe we should try to sign a veteran pass rusher and draft for other needs.

 

 

 

You don't draft expecting help for this year. It works out that way sometimes, but it's bad strategy. McKelvin looks like a tremendous pickup, but had little impact. But by his third year it now looks like he will be one of the best DBs in the league not to mention an STs weapon.

 

You draft for the long term. FAs have a much higher likelihood of impact in the first year. Obviously.

 

Having said that, centers hit more often in the first year than the other two positions you mentioned.

[Thurman#1]

Situational speed edge rushers have made an immediate impactat the DE position and this is exactly what we need. Many of these guys have been found in the later rounds too. For example Elvis Dumervill with Denever who had 8.5 sacks in his first year and 12.5 in hissecond.

 

 

Yeah, and Ellis for us this year.

[ans4e64]

Pyrite gal, is that you?

 

 

I was thinking the same thing

[Fixxxer]

I don't have any problem with a team drafting WRs, CBs, Ss in the first round. But the way you improve your teams is from the inside out.

We have drafted great players in the first round, like Evans, Lynch, Withner (good player not great), McKelvin, but without a solid foundation their abilities are sometimes misused/underused because of the constant inability to do what a team have to do to win games in this league, run the football and rush the passer.

 

Look at NE, they brought Seymour one year (2001), the year after they took Ben Graham, with the Bledsoe pick, they drafted Ty Warren, followed by yet another TE in Ben Watson after they won the SB. After that they drafted Logan Mankins. In the way the Patriots use their TEs (in line blocking) you could argue that they often use them as extra OL. After that those lucky bastards landed Vince Wilfork. Once they addressed the big boys up front they focused on improving the safety position and the LB position. Inside out.

Yes they have great coaching but the coach can call a certain gameplan because he has the talent to go and execute it.

 

I know everybody hates the coulda/shoulda/woulda, but don't tell me this team wouldn't be better if we would have followed this pattern

 

2003: Steinbach instead of McGahee

2004: Tommy Harris instead of Lee Evans

2005: Traded to Dallas, but imagine we didn't, Chris Spencer or Luis Castillo instead of Losman

2006: Ngata instead of Whitner

2007: Lynch, I'm ok with

2008: Ryan Clady or Branden Albert instead of McKelvin

 

Obviously it's a difficult or just impossible to predict because I believe that with our first two drafts the later doesn't happen because the team would have been better than it did.

 

Build the foundation of the team first and the rest will come a hell of a lot easier.

 

Let us hope we start this year.

[BUFFALOTONE]

Tim Graham has both the Bills and Dolphins going after Birk. That would be a great signing for the Bills.

 

Miami already has the samoan kid who has played well for them. The problem is we dont pay for older talent. $ years 20 mil 9 guaranteed. Sounds about right.