How does the Bills 2010 draft work?

[billistic]

Congratulations to the Bills for the impressive victory over the Chiefs...yahta, yahta...

OK, so nobody wants the Bills to have the same old front office crowd muddling up the team next season, except maybe Russ, Tom and John.

So Ralph hires some hot shot GM sometime in January. How long does it take the guy to recruit, hire and assemble a new front office and coaching staff? How long to put a solid scouting corps into the field? What are the rules governing raiding other team's (non-coaching) staff?

So what's in place by April 22nd?

...or is the idea to spend the 2010 season as a staging platform for the 2011 season (which may likely be a NFLPA lockout season with replacement players, anyway)?

Isn't the timeline problematic?

[Bill Cody]

Re: How does the Bills 2010 draft work?

Here's the usual Buffalo timeline in case a new front office team wants it: 1) trade up or reach for a player none of the fans expected
2) fans ***** about the player for a couple of years until it's clear he's a bust 3) repeat

oh wait that wasn't what you were asking?

[kernowboy]

Re: How does the Bills 2010 draft work?

Congratulations to the Bills for the impressive victory over the Chiefs...yahta, yahta...

OK, so nobody wants the Bills to have the same old front office crowd muddling up the team next season, except maybe Russ, Tom and John.

So Ralph hires some hot shot GM sometime in January. How long does it take the guy to recruit, hire and assemble a new front office and coaching staff? How long to put a solid scouting corps into the field? What are the rules governing raiding other team's (non-coaching) staff?

So what's in place by April 22nd?

...or is the idea to spend the 2010 season as a staging platform for the 2011 season (which may likely be a NFLPA lockout season with replacement players, anyway)?

Isn't the timeline problematic?

Whoever we sign as GM would have already started to prepare for the draft with their existing team, would have a knowledge of strengths and weaknesses of other teams and who they would like as Head Coach. It would be a hybrid of existing scouting and scouting views brought over by the GM

I am sure any prospective interview will have a clear idea who they will want to appoint.

I think that within 3 weeks of the GM would have been interviewed, appointed and a Head Coach be in place. However the bigger problem is Free Agency starting on 1st March 2010.

It will actually make the draft crucial and I have mentioned I can see the team giving up the 2011 R1 pick because we won't have been able to get our act together quickly enough for the initial stages of free agency.

[billistic]

Re: How does the Bills 2010 draft work?

Whoever we sign as GM would have already started to prepare for the draft with their existing team, would have a knowledge of strengths and weaknesses of other teams and who they would like as Head Coach. It would be a hybrid of existing scouting and scouting views brought over by the GM

I am sure any prospective interview will have a clear idea who they will want to appoint.

I think that within 3 weeks of the GM would have been interviewed, appointed and a Head Coach be in place. However the bigger problem is Free Agency starting on 1st March 2010.

It will actually make the draft crucial and I have mentioned I can see the team giving up the 2011 R1 pick because we won't have been able to get our act together quickly enough for the initial stages of free agency.

I'm not sure that it's safe to assume that a new GM will be an existing GM who has a pre-existing college scouting corps (Just as an example, Cower.). Further, I think that there will be any number of HC job openings, and there may be a lot of time-consuming negotiating as to salaries, degree of authority, etc., that is, it may be a buyer's market. I don't think that FA is such a big deal. Lately, FA has been very quiet, and during the uncapped year, there will be fewer than ever FAs.

It's a very complicated situation. Something urgently needs to be done, but I can understand how it would be very seductive to not "change horses in the middle of the stream", so to speak. I have no idea how a college scouting staff is assembled, but I'm pretty sure it's a lifetime networking process. I never understood the enthusiasm over the Buddy Nix hire, since the Chargers dumped him and he was out of football. Insider stuff, I'm sure.

[billistic]

Re: How does the Bills 2010 draft work?

Here's the usual Buffalo timeline in case a new front office team wants it: 1) trade up or reach for a player none of the fans expected
2) fans ***** about the player for a couple of years until it's clear he's a bust 3) repeat

oh wait that wasn't what you were asking?

#1: Do you mean like Losman, McCargo, Parrish, Hardly and Maybin?

#2: In Buffalo, it never gets clear.

#3: Repeat, like Polian leading his teams to the playoffs?