C.J. Spiller - What are your thoughts?

his just not the player we need at this time we have to strengthen our lines then go from there we had a surplus of talent at RB. Chix drafting him has never made sense to me besides using the excuse of him being the B.P.A. They could have at least took the ten minutes instead of rushing up to the podium to hear offers other teams were giving us for that pick

No I did not like the pick. I was and still am of the belief that Bulaga, Davis, or Saffold would have been better then any OT we will get in this years draft, and would have been the way to go. I believe they knew they would get rid of Lynch so RB was a position of need to them. They were hoping to push him in fast and furious as was demonstrated by him beeing the starter in week #1, but he was not ready. I think they then decided to work him in slow, and try to put him in positions that he could be succesfull. This tact was hated by most fans, but IMO will be good for him in setting him up for next year.

Spiller is going to be fine if he will learn from FJ on how to not take the big loss. He needs some help from the OL as he needs a biger hole than FJ but when he gets that hole watch out. I also think we need to get better on the OL outside blocking. This is where Spiller will shine, but Bell, and the revolving door at RT did not help him at all. I in no way think he is a bust, but we could have done better with that pick.

how good he’ll be (personally, I think he’ll figure it out.), but please, please, please don’t keep judging him off of one year.
Give the kid another year and then we’ll start talking how he’ll turn out.

The only positions I feel really translate well for rookies in the NFL are OL and CB and for thats about it I exp[ect large impact for guys in those positions early on in their careers, that being said I did expect a little more out of Cliff to be honest but I didn’t expect the world so im in the middle on his rookie campaign.

He really needs to work on making the first guy miss or just plain staying on his feet after intial contact, he needs to take a page from Freddie’s book and no matter what play in the game or what down he needs to not run out of bounds and lower his head and get that extra half a yard and he needs to improve his pass blocking so we can keep him in the game on downs where hes not getting the ball so its not so obvious.

but obviously has a lot to prove. Maybe it was the system or he needs a better offensive line, or they didn’t use him enough, we will have to wait and see. I did watch him quite a bit at Clemson and thought he would make quite an impact in the NFL, so I am surprised that he didn’t play that well as a rookie.

Had Spiller just been mediocre, it would have been disappointing enough. For a team with amazingly little talent on their roster like Buffalo to be ballsy enough to use a top 10 pick on a gimmick scatback, Spiller needs to be great when it’s all said and done to justify the pick. I thought he was actually bad- really bad- his entire rookie season. For most of the season, he was a below average kick returner with ball security issues that was too timid towards contact in the backfield. For all his supposed speed, defenders were easily able to steer him to the sidelines where he walked harmlessly out of bounds. Buffalo would be crazy to give up in such an important investment, so you have to hope he comes back in 2011 with it all figured out, but in terms of evaluating his rookie season? I can’t imagine how it could have been any worse.

Mostly because I think he’ll be more useful than Trung Canidate. I would have voted poor if worded differently.

Wasn’t real happy with the pick, and was even more unhappy once he got on the field. To say he was terrible would be kind. He’s a scatback and really doesn’t look like more than that. I don’t see him ever establishing himself as more than a part-time player. He simply cannot run between the tackles and just looks too weak, gunshy and incapable of breaking tackles. Will that change? Perhaps, but i doubt it.

What he does need to do is start securing the ball and working on his vision. If he’s going to be successful, it’ll be due to cutbacks and making defenders miss. He couldn’t do that at all this past year, so that may not be in his repertoire, but I’ll leave that possibility on the table. Once he gets into the open field, he’ll be tough to stop. Getting there is his biggest problem. He has to start beating defenders to the corner and he has to start making guys miss. It’s as simple as that. If he can’t do that, he’s never going to amount to much more than he currently is.

Oh, hang onto the ball as well, kid.

he has the will, ability and attitude.

He has game breaking possibility………but you cant expect him to be a 20 carry a game back. That’s not his game.

He needs to be in better positions to be successful IMO……….but he has some personal stuff to work on too regarding his game.

Unfortunately it looks like another luxury pick when the Bills are in the position to draft that type of players (See also……..Maybin, Aaron)

The holes his line is creating for him are huge. I know that Fred worked with the line we had and was still able to be successful, but CJ is not the type of runner that Fred is. It would be interesting to see how spiller would have performed if he were to play with a line like that in the game yesterday.

Yes, running backs are very important to winning, because establishing the run is one of the first things teams should do to start a game. But let’s face it, you do not need to spend that high of a pick and spend that kind of money on a running back. Yes there are great 1st round running backs…Peterson, C. Johnson, Mendenhall, DeAngelo, Stewart, S. Jackson, Moreno, McFadden, but guess what, only one of those guys was even in the playoffs, and he wasn’t the reason, it was defense and coaching.

You can find great running backs in any round, Mojo – 2nd, Rice – 3rd, Foster – undrafted, Charles – 3rd, Turner – 5th, F. Jackson – undrafted, Green-Ellis – undrafted, Hillis – 7th, McCoy – 3rd, Forte – 2nd, any Packers RB, Ivory – undrafted, Blount – undrafted, Gore – 3rd.

The Bills have used a 1st round pick on a running back 3 times the past 7 drafts – McGahee (Raven), Lynch (Seahawk), and now Spiller, tell me how well that is working out for us. The Panthers did it in ‘06 and ’08, tell me how that all worked out. I don’t care who the player is, it is such a bad idea to take a running back in the 1st round, there’s so much more value in other positions. Just like this year, a team can probably get Noel Devine in the 4th or 5th round and will have a great RB for the next 5 years til they need a new one and he’s burned out.

So yeah, it was dumb to take Spiller, he might be fast and athletic and be able to return punts and kicks, but so can Devin Hester and Josh Cribbs, a 9th overall pick wasn’t wasted on them, kinda like how the Dolphins took Ted Ginn 9th overall, that worked out well.

I still don’t agree with the pick, but he’s got talent. He probably won’t ever be a feature back or a 25 carries a game back but there is a place for him and Gailey will probably find it.

Not that his position requires a high score to be successful, but it may be a factor in his slow start.