why are fans excited about the draft

[H2o]

If you look at the track record of the Bills draft with Modrak, it makes no sense for Bills fans to invest a whole lot of time discussing the draft.

 

Being that the Bills do a shoddy job of evaluating NFL free agents who have already spent years in the league, it's almost expected that they're not going to excel at projecting what college players will do in the NFL.

If they cannot gauge the ability of an NFL player how are they going to gauge they ability of a college player in the NFL?

And their track record shows exactly that, it sucks.

Worse yet they now have a guy in the gm role who has no business being there.

 

If this team happens upon a good 1st round pick this year it will be by pure accident because it's obvious by now that they don't have clue one.

It's like Christmas for the NFL only difference is teams are picking their presents from a reserved slot. It is the season of perpetual hope for the football fan. You hope that your team gets players that you're familiar with and believe would have a significant impact. It's a time that any, every fan can dream and speculate about who will don your favorite team's uniform starting in offseason workouts. It's a time where the game is won and lost behind closed doors and not on the field. We all know how quickly that hope can be dashed to pieces though if a team takes an off the wall player or some one you feel is a turd. Either way right now it's happy feelings towards the draft, but who knows what it will be like come April 27th.

[Fingon]

If you look at the track record of the Bills draft with Modrak, it makes no sense for Bills fans to invest a whole lot of time discussing the draft.

 

Being that the Bills do a shoddy job of evaluating NFL free agents who have already spent years in the league, it's almost expected that they're not going to excel at projecting what college players will do in the NFL.

If they cannot gauge the ability of an NFL player how are they going to gauge they ability of a college player in the NFL?

And their track record shows exactly that, it sucks.

Worse yet they now have a guy in the gm role who has no business being there.

 

If this team happens upon a good 1st round pick this year it will be by pure accident because it's obvious by now that they don't have clue one.

Why don't you just leave this forum? You obviously feel the bills are terrible, and hate the team.

[Poland]

Agreed.

 

Poland = F**king ridiculous, always wrong, needs to shut the f**k up.

Twerps like you don't shut anyone up.

The best way for you to learn is to keep your trap shut and your eyes open.

[Poland]

It's like Christmas for the NFL only difference is teams are picking their presents from a reserved slot. It is the season of perpetual hope for the football fan. You hope that your team gets players that you're familiar with and believe would have a significant impact. It's a time that any, every fan can dream and speculate about who will don your favorite team's uniform starting in offseason workouts. It's a time where the game is won and lost behind closed doors and not on the field. We all know how quickly that hope can be dashed to pieces though if a team takes an off the wall player or some one you feel is a turd. Either way right now it's happy feelings towards the draft, but who knows what it will be like come April 27th.

I'm just saying that with the clowns they have running the draft it's a bigger crap shoot for the Bills then the teams that know what they're doing.

[Poland]

So you joined yesterday (under this screen name) and are obviously here only to amuse yourself by starting argumentative threads contrived to provoke, I gotta wonder - under what, and how many, other name(s) have you been making an ass of yourself?

The Senator

I went to check on some of your posts , what I see mostly is you putting on display some sort of infatuation for Losman and stories about your times in SanFrancisco.

Talk about making an flaming ass out of yourself.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

The Senator

I went to check on some of your posts , what I see mostly is you putting on display some sort of infatuation for Losman and stories about your times in SanFrancisco.

Talk about making an flaming ass out of yourself.

Well, once again. This has sort of devolved into the arms race. Or Palestine-Israel.

 

I wonder if anyone will choose to take the high road? That would be an unexpected and pleasant surprise...and a reason for hope.

[The Senator]

The Senator

I went to check on some of your posts , what I see mostly is you putting on display some sort of infatuation for Losman and stories about your times in SanFrancisco.

Talk about making an flaming ass out of yourself.

Nice try - you didn't check out anything. You didn't have to - you've been here all along.

[Poland]

Wow Poland,

 

In just a few short days, you've established an impressive legacy of pointing out problems and offering no solutions. I know you're trying to tell it like it is. But not everything associated with this franchise (including us) is bad and in need of fixing.

 

For me this message board is not a way to spray negativity into the universe. There are already too many people who post here who are either unhappy or negative (in life or about the Bills) and have to manifest this onto the rest of mankind.

 

I try to come here for intelligent sports talk. Not the unfunny one-line, "quips" that offer no solutions that abound around here. Nor the longer, "the sky is falling and we're all about to die" essays. Good, solid (if hypothetical) football takes from people who decide that if they could do it again, they would want to come back as the General Manager (or at least an advisor) of the Buffalo Bills.

 

So let me play devil's advocate to your claim that, and I'll paraphrase you, that "the Bills under the guidance of Tom Modrak do a generally poor job of choosing talent and as a result, none of us should really concern ourselves with discussing the draft.

 

Firstly, how have they done drafting? I don't know of any reliable statistical analysis which grades NFL teams reliably on their recent past drafts. Like all teams there are hits and misses. Some people here like to point out that we could have had Tom Brady. So could have every other team in the NFL...six times. Yes I'd rather have Haloti Ngata than Donte Whitner but on the other hand only Mario Williams and D'Brickashaw Ferguson have outplayed Whitner of those who were taken before him.

 

Look, without a real scientific study showing who drafted who when, how long that player played for that team, how good a player that player was, etc. we don't really know if the Bills are better or worse than the average NFL team in terms of recent drafts.

 

But for the sake of discussion, I'll go along with your criticism: The Bills draft poorly since Modrak's been here. Okay.

 

So how much has Modrak been a part of that? Well, he's never been general manager, he's never been President. He's never been Vice President for Football Operations. In other words, he's basically a scout, super-scout if you prefer. How much weight does he have in decisions? We don't know. All we know is that Brandon, Modrak, Guy, Wilson, and Jauron are making collaborative decisions. This has been the basic approach since Marv succeeded Donahoe.

 

Now we hear that Modrak will have more say. Is that a good thing? We don't know but as you suggest, less of Brandon and more of Modrak probably is a good thing.

 

As another poster pointed out, Buddy Nix returned to the Bills organization a few months ago. Last season he was Assistant General Manager and Director of Player Personnel for the San Diego Chargers. He's a very respected evaluator. The story is that there was a falling out between Nix and A.J. Smith (yes another person Smith pissed off) who Nix left Buffalo to go to San Diego with in the first place. The hiring of Nix to me seems like the Bills are weighting the decision making more towards the scouting department again and away from Brandon. So this is cause for optimism.

 

I'm excited about the Bills offseason. I am perhaps overly optimistic but I'd rather that than come here and just negatively pollute the board every day.

Fisrt of all it would be a plus if you learned the skill of conveying your thoughts in a concise fashion.

 

So for now I will answer what I put in bold.

There is a very simple and precise way to gauge how well a team drafts.

You look at the performance of the players and the team.

Suffice to say the Bills haven't done very well.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Fisrt of all it would be a plus if you learned the skill of conveying your thoughts in a concise fashion.

 

So for now I will answer what I put in bold.

There is a very simple and precise way to gauge how well a team drafts.

You look at the performance of the players and the team.

Suffice to say the Bills haven't done very well.

With regards to the performance of the team, how do you separate the players from the coaching?

 

Also regarding team performance, where does budget enter the picture?

 

Look forward to your replies.

[Poland]

With regards to the performance of the team, how do you separate the players from the coaching?

 

Also regarding team performance, where does budget enter the picture?

 

Look forward to your replies.

I would direct you to the review of the 1st round picks I posted since Modrak has been here.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Fisrt of all it would be a plus if you learned the skill of conveying your thoughts in a concise fashion.

 

So for now I will answer what I put in bold.

There is a very simple and precise way to gauge how well a team drafts.

You look at the performance of the players and the team.

Suffice to say the Bills haven't done very well.

Also, for the sake of the discussion, I gave you that the Bills haven't drafted well.

 

So given that, how do you know that the blame falls on Modrak in light of all the other information I provided.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

I would direct you to the review of the 1st round picks I posted since Modrak has been here.

So I gather that you are saying that the team's poor performance is bad drafting (mostly Modrak) and has nothing to do with coaching and budget.

 

Is this correct?

[oak tree 12]

If you look at the track record of the Bills draft with Modrak, it makes no sense for Bills fans to invest a whole lot of time discussing the draft.

 

Being that the Bills do a shoddy job of evaluating NFL free agents who have already spent years in the league, it's almost expected that they're not going to excel at projecting what college players will do in the NFL.

If they cannot gauge the ability of an NFL player how are they going to gauge they ability of a college player in the NFL?

And their track record shows exactly that, it sucks.

Worse yet they now have a guy in the gm role who has no business being there.

 

If this team happens upon a good 1st round pick this year it will be by pure accident because it's obvious by now that they don't have clue one.

 

 

it seems to this guy that the one who does not have a clue is you!

[oak tree 12]

I AGREE---What annoys me with the Bills braintrust is that they allowed Modrak to reside full time on Florida and not even live in the community of the team he represents.

 

There's information that he inherently misses by NOT being around co-workers/players on a regular basis. Theres a level of trust I'm sure players and other management do not have when they dont really know or see a co-worker. This lack of visiblity creates a lack of candor, honesty and trust that has to effect the team adversely. If he is not commited enough to commit to the team why is the team commited to him-T

 

HE BOTTOM LINE: He is the one consistent factor the Bills still have from the loser era begining with the other TOM, Tom Donahoe. Give me a break. The record speaks for itself-we didnt even pursue a Center , a known position of need last year, and Bill Polians (ex-Bills) team started a rookie from the University of BUFFALO-the Bills didnt even see a need to bring in a free agent at the worst position on the O-Line-beautiful! Great job Modrak! lets increase his control!

 

it couldnt be that there were no great centers coming out last year and the bills knew this year was going to be one of the best years for the center position in the last 10 years. they take the best available athlete when they pick if there was not a center there who deserved to be picked thats why they didnt draft one.

 

history has taught us that the worst thing a team can do is ignore talent @ any position and draft for need.

[Solomon Grundy]

Poland, I think you are giving Modrak a bad rap when it comes to the Bills drafts. Wasn't it Modrak that recommended that we draft Cutler only to be underminded by our then GM Marv Levy and selected a DB. I also remember the McGahee pick being solely the selection of Tom Donahoe. Modrak when having the final say in selecting talent has proven to be very good. Remember the job he did in Philly. With him finally being in control of the Bills draft this year, let's see what type of job he does.

[Poland]

Well, once again. This has sort of devolved into the arms race. Or Palestine-Israel.

 

I wonder if anyone will choose to take the high road? That would be an unexpected and pleasant surprise...and a reason for hope.

As you can see I didn't initiate any of this stuff, but I'm certainly not going to stand by and take any crap from that JP fan boy.

[Bill from NYC]

it couldnt be that there were no great centers coming out last year and the bills knew this year was going to be one of the best years for the center position in the last 10 years. they take the best available athlete when they pick if there was not a center there who deserved to be picked thats why they didnt draft one.

 

history has taught us that the worst thing a team can do is ignore talent @ any position and draft for need.

 

They could have traded down and selected Mangold (multiple offers according to Levy). I am not a fan of JP. In fact, I think he sucks, but they devoted the 06 offseason to defensive backs instead of helping their quarterback. It was stupid then, we continue to be hurt by this idiocy.

 

Oddly enough, I still believe that the Bills aren't so far away from playing well but to do so, they need players on both lines and a tigt end. The needs are the same since the arrival of Dick Levy.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Also, for the sake of the discussion, I gave you that the Bills haven't drafted well.

 

So given that, how do you know that the blame falls on Modrak in light of all the other information I provided.

Still waiting on your reply Poland.

[San Jose Bills Fan]

So I gather that you are saying that the team's poor performance is bad drafting (mostly Modrak) and has nothing to do with coaching and budget.

 

Is this correct?

Still waiting Poland.

[Poland]

Poland, I think you are giving Modrak a bad rap when it comes to the Bills drafts. Wasn't it Modrak that recommended that we draft Cutler only to be underminded by our then GM Marv Levy and selected a DB. I also remember the McGahee pick being solely the selection of Tom Donahoe. Modrak when having the final say in selecting talent has proven to be very good. Remember the job he did in Philly. With him finally being in control of the Bills draft this year, let's see what type of job he does.

Well to be honest I don't know if Modrak recommended Cutler or not.

I don't think any of us know, all I can go on is what I see.

 

Let's look at it this way, Levy doesn't follow these players through college, so if Modrak made his strongest case for Culter would Levy just disregard that and take Whitner instead ?

That would be sort of strange.

I guess it could have went down that way, if it happened at all, or maybe Modrak wasn't as commital as he sould have been.

Maybe he didn't state his opinion strongly when it is his job to so.

 

And the same thing with magahee we really don't know.

It's more plausable to me coming from donahue as opposed to levy but I can't say it happened that way because I wasn't there.

 

I guess they have what they think are solid reasons for hanging on to Modrak, but let's face fact their decisions on who runs the front office have not been good since Pollian.