Front Office

Meh. I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse. These drafts are far better than Donahoe’s travesties. The 2005 draft you listed was a Donahoe draft.

Please don’t ever list the players taken in the 2005 and 2006 draft again :-)

G Aaron Merz California – practice squad? out of football?

Hanging out at Krytime’s house drinking his beer.

2006
S Donte Whitner Ohio State – not game changer
DT John McCargo NC State – bust
CB Ashton Youboty Ohio State – shown flashes but hurt alot
S Ko Simpson South Carolina – overrated and probably gone after this season
DT Kyle Williams LSU – good find
OT Brad Butler Virginia – good find
OLB Keith Ellison Oregon St. – backup at best
Terrance Pennington – cut
G Aaron Merz California – practice squad? out of football?

Whitner is a good player and if he is moved to FS I feel his playmaking skills will be shown. Youbouty is a solid nickel corner if not sometimes starter – well worth the third round pick he cost. You call Ko overrated but he was a 4th round pick. I think he is at best a decent starter and at worst a decent back-up. I do agree he will be gone this offseason or next. Kyle Williams and Brad Butler, great players. Keith Ellison – another below-average starter or a solid backup as he has proven this season.

2007
Marshawn Lynch RB California – great pick
Paul Posluszny OLB Penn State – not living up to expectations thus far
Trent Edwards QB Stanford – hopefully GREAT find
Dwayne Wright RB Fresno State – cut
John Wendling S Wyoming – career backup/STer
Derek Schouman TE Boise State – jury still out
C.J. Ah You – cut

Poz- not living up to expectations? What were your expectations of the kid? He has 91 tackles this year to lead the team by 37!!!! He hasn’t single-handedly stopped the run but in his first full season he is going to go over 100 tackles, a large portion of them unassisted, and he is calling the defensive plays. Tell me your expectations of the kid. Everybody knows I love Trent. Dwayne Wright made me so happy and then he fumbled it away – literally. Wendling is a special teams guy as you said but they count like starters for the Bills (why Roscoe could easily have a case in your 2005 draft as being worth his pick) and Schouman is the second coming of Royal without the fumbles. He can block but isn’t a dynamic threat.

2008 – cannot make an opinion yet…too early
Leodis McKelvin CB Troy University
James Hardy WR Indiana
Chris Ellis DE Virginia Tech
Reggie Corner DB Akron
Derek Fine TE Kansas
Alvin Bowen OLB Iowa State
Xavier Omon RB Northwest Missouri State
Demetrius Bell T Northwestern State
Steve Johnson WR Kentucky
Kennard Cox
I see some quality there, but nothing to write home about.

McKelvin will prove his worthiness with either Special Teams or Defense. Reggie Corner looks to be an adequate 4th round pick and Steve Johnson may make up for picking Hardy if he doesn’t develop.

As far as SOLID starters i’d only put these guys on my list:
Donte Whitner
Kyle Williams
Brad Butler
Marshawn Lynch
Paul Posluszny
Trent Edwards
Leodis McKelvin – even though jury still out on ’08 class

so that makes 7 SOLID starters over 4 drafts. 1st round picks should be a gimme as they are the easiest to pick. so that means over the last 4 years we have found only 3 other SOLID starters in later rounds for our team.

Since when are the first round picks gimmies???? In Madden? Nothing is a gimmie. That is the absoulte dumbest comment I have read on here in a long time. I hate trashing you on it but it is stupid to say that. Now that I have thoroughly yelled at you my list is the same as yours: Whitner, Williams, Butler, Marshawn, Poz, Trent, McKelvin as starters. I don’t think you give enough credit to good depth, though, or special teams.

Other key draft contributors: Roscoe (2005), Youboty, Ko Simpson, Ellison, Wendling, Corner

What about undrafter contributors like Action Freddy Jackson? Brian Moorman and Jason Peters (thought before the time frame you suggest), too.

J2, I believe you are using a depressing Bills perspective to shed a much worse light on the situation than is actually there. You just notice our mistakes more because you pay attention to them and only notice other teams successes. Look at the Patriots recent draft history, you would expect it to be incomparably better than ours considering their great front office, coaches, and winning ways in recent years. I also think its funny you call Donte Whitner “not a game changer” instead of “solid safety or good starter”. It just seems like you are taking too overly pessimistic a perspective.

2005

Logan Mankins G- great pick
Ellis Hobbs CB- very average corner.
Nick Kaczur G/T – solid lineman, good starter
James Sanders SS – backup safety, seen nothing special yet
Ryan Claridge OLB- cut the following year, out of football
Matt Cassell QB- overrated, can’t throw the deep ball
Andy Stokes TE- mr.irrelevant, out of football

2006

Laurence Maroney RB- jury still out if he can be a starter
Chad Jackson WR – disappointment, NE traded up to get him, now doing nothing with the Broncos.
Dave Thomas TE- backup.

2007

Brandon Meriwether S – not a game changer (to use your description of Donte)
Kareem Brown DT- stuck on Jets practice squad
Clint Oldenburg OT- stuck on Rams practice squad
Justin Rogers OLB – backup on Cowboys
Mike Richardson CB- just promoted from practice squad to backup for NE
Justin Hairston RB – out of football
Corey Hilliard OT – backup on Colts
Oscar Lua MLB- out of football
Mike ElginG/C – stints with Colts, Jets, Pats, now out of football

Since it is too early to judge 2008, I think I’ll stop there. Now how do you feel about our drafts? This is a list of their solid draft picks from 2005-2007

Logan Mankins
Nick Kaczur
Laurence Maroney
Brandon Meriweather
JUST TO BE FAIR, even though I don’t think they belong on this list I’ll add
Matt Cassel
Ellis Hobbs

As you pointed out from 2005-2007 the Bills drafted
Trent Edwards
Paul Pozluszny
Marshawn Lynch
Brad Butler
Kyle Williams
Donte Whitner
JUST TO BE FAIR, if Hobbs is going to make the list so should
Keith Ellison
Roscoe Parrish

Can you look at those drafts and honestly tell me the Pats are incomparably better at drafting than we have been. Being slightly better, which is debatable if they are, is not good enough. This team should be light years better. No, K and J2, you still have not convinced me that the front office hasn’t been a strength of this organization in recent years and in team building.

Again, coaching

I think the failures of the front office (mainly Modrak and Guy) ARE the biggest problem for the Bills.

There are some cliches out there about how teamwork and playing as a team is the most important thing in the NFL, but it isn’t. The NFL is just like any other league and superstars win games. The Bills don’t have ANY superstars and that falls on the front office.

Paul Posluszny OLB Penn State – not living up to expectations thus far

Then your expectations were way too high. Poz has been a really good player so far and while he hasn’t been great in coverage he has held his own. He hasn’t been a good blitzer, but didn’t scouting reports say that wouldn’t be one of his strengths? Bills fans are so used to seeing undersized linebackers that people tend to forget Poz’s size is average at best. In this defensive scheme he shouldn’t be asked to blitz anyways, his job should be to keep pass plays in front of him and wrap up and don’t miss tackles and he does all of that very well.

If you really want to show how bad this FO has been you should post the free agent moves over the last few offseasons instead of the drafts. The drafting (post-donahoe) has been very solid, just not spectacular. For example, if that 2006 draft said Ngata instead of Whitner and/or Nick Mangold instead of John McCargo, then this team would be considerably better than what they are now.