Buffalo Bills Pre-Draft Luncheon: Buddy Nix Quotes

Earlier this week, we compiled all of the meaningful 2012 NFL Draft related quotes that Buffalo Bills GM Buddy Nix had compiled to date during a long and very busy off-season. In one 45-minute press conference on Wednesday - the Bills' annual pre-draft luncheon - Nix just about doubled in volume the meaningful things he'd said.

After the jump, we've organized Nix's quotes from yesterday in the same way we did last week. It's lengthy, but it's worth its weight in gold. Enjoy - and, believe it or not, there's even more to come.

On the prospect of trading down
"It takes two, and it's normally not a lot of action with us for people wanting to move to 10. We'd consider everything. You might get the same guy. A good chance you might get the same caliber guy. If that presents itself we'd consider it."

"You probably would say this year's a little better for that because of there's more equal guys. You might get the same from 10-20 that you get from 1-10, now you don't know that but that could probably be the case this year. Again, I don't think if there's a guy there - even though he may not be one that's got the wow factor that some of them have - if he's a guy that can come in and make a difference in us, then I don't think you move from 10. You might get one."

On what he expects from the No. 10 pick
"You'd think at 10 you'd get a starter. With us, what we'd like to get, like everybody else, we'd like to get a difference maker or a playmaker, the impact guy. You should get a starter. But again, we don't - and I guess I don't feel the pressure that we've got to start a guy just because we drafted him tenth. That's Chan's philosophy, it's our, that a guy is going to compete for the job rather than giving it to him right off."

Other general draft-related commentary
"You look at what will be there in the second. It might have some bearing on what you do in the first. There is some depth at positions we need. We think from the second round on that there'll be some really good players."

"I think (free agency) had a lot of impact on us, really. We knew - my wife knew - we didn't get enough outside pressure and we were pretty good inside. We had to try to fix that. We were able to do it, I think, in free agency. Therefore we're a little freer as far as who we pick. You don't want to get yourself in a spot that you've got to reach, and we've said that from day one. And most of the time reach term comes from all the stuff we hear from mock drafts and folks that have them ranked, well that's too high and that's too low. I think that gives us more freedom there for sure."

"I think (player visits) it's just a piece of the puzzle. I know that's not the right answer they want. You might get one in here that turns you off, but still as far as his being with us and where we would take him, that probably doesn't change it. Let me expand on that just a little bit: one of the things that we bring him in here for is to be sure about their learning ability. We let them spend time with the position coach when they're in here. Our coaches don't scout. They look at tape and they visit with the guys at the Combine and then we bring them in here to put them on the board. Everything else you see, but when you start trying to figure out how our guys are going to do as far as scheme and learning from the playbook or learning from the board, you actually need to put him up there and see what he does and what he retains."

"If I had to guess and put a percentage on it, I'd say for us we're 70 percent on how he played. The other junk that goes into it, all that other stuff might make a difference in whether or not he's successful, but that makes up a very small percentage for us. All this moving up and down the boards that you hear about, it's hard to believe how a fella can do that without playing, but it all comes back to one of the guys is a clear-cut first-rounder. He's the second-best tackle, he's a third-best tackle and he's moving up. I mean Tannehill, I asked him yesterday - I've never seen a guy go up and down like he has without playing. It's all what you hear."

"Sometimes I'll go around and ask them who they'll take. Our board is changing. We put the board up, Doug and them put the board up in January. And then we meet before the Combine and it's that way then. Then we go and if we found out more about a guy, if a guy gets in trouble with the law, anything like that, might change it. This time we go through it again. Next Wednesday it will be set in stone."

"In (Tom Gibbons') office on the board, and I go look at it every day, plus he gives me a handout of what teams have filled since yesterday and now looks like they may need this position or that position. In his office every free agent is listed by position and every time one is signed they take him off and put him on the team. If they lose a guy then he'll have a blank place at linebacker where they need a guy. It's pretty easy even for me to tell kind of what they might do."

"I wish I could tell you it's scientific, but it's not. It's more of a gut feeling. There are some things that you do that's immaturity that kids do. They do it their first year in freshman and sophomore years and then you say well he's changed. But most of that comes from learning about life and how to act, so we think that that doesn't really eliminate a guy. But if it's a repeat offender and it's the wrong kind of trouble then we stay away from it."

"I think I'd be really dumb to turn a guy down because of where he played, so I hope that answers your question. The reason we go south is we go where the players are. If we were trying to go by area, all ours would come from Buffalo."

"Football is a way of life down there. Where you get a guy, let's just go back to high school quickly. In some areas you got four coaches in the high school that teach class all day and they don't make a lot of money. Then you go to Texas or down south and you'll have 12 coaches. None of them teach and they make good money and get a good car once a year to drive. It's whatever your priority is."

On the quarterback position
"We'd still (draft one early). That's any position, but obviously quarterbacks too."

"To be honest, I'd like to draft one every year, in an ideal world. If you didn't have needs that you had to use every pick to try to get better overall. The better we get, the more we can do stuff like that. I think you need to keep, you need to draft a corner every year so many of them play, I think a quarterback because they're so hard to find. There are quarterbacks somewhere in the draft, we don't know exactly which one it is, that might be another Brady, or somebody that was picked late that blossoms and comes on. I think if you can and you've got enough picks, you should take one every year."

"I know a lot of people (at Chattanooga), (wife) Diane's down there. (B.J. Coleman), I saw him in high school play. He's got all of the prototype as far as size, strong arm and that kind of thing. Again, would he be a guy that would be a franchise pick or could make a run? I think he's got the ability to do that. We don't pinpoint them again. He being from Chattanooga has nothing to do with it."

On the wide receiver position
"Let me just say one thing, the wide receiver position is deep in this draft."

"I'll tell you this, we do need one. We do need some speed outside. We got more than you think, too. (David Clowney), he hasn't done it, again we don't have a proven one, but he runs in the 4.3. So it's not just speed, but it would really help Stevie Johnson if we had some speed outside and we know that. Hopefully we can fill that need."

"I know Chan lets a guy do what he can do and I think that's an asset for us. That'd be my answer as far as if we got a guy in here that couldn't beat bump coverage and that's what we were seeing. He probably wouldn't use him that way. H eight line him up in the slot to get him off the line of scrimmage easier. I think that's probably the best I can answer that. I don't know that a guy that can separate from a defender he can probably run most of what you ask him to do. A lot of it is mental and being able to adjust to the game and speed and having somebody in your hip pocket when you're not used to that. We go look at a lot of guys and a lot of quarterbacks are throwing in windows that's half as big as a house. The percentage is good but it's a different story up here. You've got to throw it in a little knothole."

"People are running spread offenses. You don't see many folks lining up with a tight end anymore. You look at college and everybody says that college is following what we do, but that's not necessarily the case. We follow a lot of what they do because that's where we get players. If you look at the spread offenses, you look at people that are using the tight end in the old way. You'd look at Alabama and Stanford who do it, but when you get past those guys there's not many. You got to, again as talking about the south, but you go where the players are and where they're proven. There are not many tight ends being used in college anymore."

On the offensive tackle position
"There are a high percentage of them that's drafted in the Top 10, left tackles. Again, don't read into that, but most of the starters in this league, especially Pro Bowlers, were taken in the first eight or nine picks."

"I'm going to make this clear: we think Chris Hairston can play left tackle for us and win. He did it and he went in there… he may not be the prettiest foot athlete but he's got so much length that he can protect the back side. We feel like he can do that."

"We need tackles… now we've only got two, and Sam Young is coming off of knee surgery. That's three tackles in the house. That's not enough. We'd like to have two more."

"If you haven't got one, yeah. I think they are, especially left tackles. Normally that guy is by himself on an island and I consider them a playmaker. I think it's kind of like a long snapper, they really get important if you haven't got one."

"Let me also say this about offensive tackle being a difference maker. I think they are. I guess I was thinking a big playmaker which a tackle is not. But a difference maker is a guy that makes your team better and can do things to make you able to do more like throwing down the field more and that kind of thing. So I think in that light, certainly a left tackle fits that need."

On upgrading the pass rush
"We wouldn't shy away from taking one because we got these two guys. We'd still take a young guy and try to develop… we've got nine defensive ends on our football team and we got some good, young guys. We got 6'5", 6'6" guys that are 24 years old that haven't done it yet, but they've got the potential. And if we can upgrade that from what they are, we'll do it."

On the linebacker position
"It's similar, very similar. You need a little more height; you need a little better cover guy. But we think that a guy can probably, if he can play one he can probably play the other, especially those two outside guys."

"We need more. We need some depth. We do."

"(Luke Kuechly) could play all three for us."

On the secondary
"We do need some depth in some places in the secondary, and you'd always like to have a shutdown corner that you could get and put over to start with and not worry about that side. We will try to add some secondary guys."

"It does a lot. With (Terrence McGee), when Terrence is healthy he's as good as any of them. Hopefully he'll get through this year healthy, but we've still got to - we can't get caught. I don't want to get us in a position that we were in last year and the year before. If we get one hurt it's a big drop-off. You lose the ability to compete. So we're trying to, we're going to try to fix that. (Leodis McKelvin) going into his last year, he'll probably play lights out. I hope he does."

"I just think it's hard to play defense, really. I think you've got to react on defense instead of having plays called where you know what you're going to do when you go to the line of scrimmage. You've got to be able to sit and then react to it. So I think it takes better athletes - and I'm probably glad Chan's not in here to hear that - but they've got to be instinctive and be able to move on the snap. I think that's probably the main thing."

"You know, I just would not get into that. But if you mean whether we'll take (Janoris Jenkins) or not, ability-wise obviously you would. This is a political answer I'm fixing to give you, but otherwise you wouldn't. You get enough trouble without getting one that you know is a problem."