Four Simple Rules For This Year's Draft

[Jan Reimers]

1. Do not take a seriously injured player, even if he is the best athlete available.

2. Do not take the best athlete available period, if we are fairly well set at his position.

3. Do not take a player at a position of critical need, if he appears not ready to contribute immediately.

4. Do not expect your QB of the future to come in a late round grab bag.

The draft is obviously subjective, and we certainly may miss on a player, but adherence to these rules - which are different from the last couple of drafts - will give us a chance to get better, sooner.

[The_Philster]

We violated numbers 1 and 2 in 2003

[Jan Reimers]

Originally posted by The_Philster
We violated numbers 1 and 2 in 2003

We also violated number 2 with Reed in 2002, and number 3 with Kelsay in 2003.

[TigerJ]

I think conventional wisdom in this age of free agency is that you want your first round pick to contribute significantly in his rookie year. Obviously with McGahee, TD knew that would not be the case. When you get to rounds two and three, it depends on where your team is in development. The worst team in the league had better get starters in the first three rounds. The best team in the league may get a starter in round one and that's it, if the GM has managed to keep the team relatively intact from the year before. Obviously Buffalo needs to get a starter in round one. There have been discussions elsewhere on what positions they should focus on and I'm not going to duplicate that here. I think Buffalo needs to get a starter from rounds two or three, two starters if Buffalo ends up with an extra draft choice as some have been predicting.

[Dozerdog]

Originally posted by Jan Reimers
1. Do not take a seriously injured player, even if he is the best athlete available.

2. Do not take the best athlete available period, if we are fairly well set at his position.

3. Do not take a player at a position of critical need, if he appears not ready to contribute immediately.

4. Do not expect your QB of the future to come in a late round grab bag.

The draft is obviously subjective, and we certainly may miss on a player, but adherence to these rules - which are different from the last couple of drafts - will give us a chance to get better, sooner.

Soooo... pass on blue chip potential pro bowlers (if available) to take a player at a position and draft slot that he's not projected to go, just because we have a hole to fill.

Makes sense to me.

[Jan Reimers]

Originally posted by Dozerdog
Soooo... pass on blue chip potential pro bowlers (if available) to take a player at a position and draft slot that he's not projected to go, just because we have a hole to fill.

Makes sense to me.

Yeah - or we'll be rebuilding and hoping for players to reach their potential until Hell freezes over. We've missed the playoffs 4 years in a row, waiting for McGahee, Reed, Williams, Denney, Edwards, Kelsay and others to develop into pro bowlers.

Screw potential. Let's draft some players that we actually need and can produce something besides future promise.

I'm not as young as you, Dozer. I'd like to see us make the playoffs again before I croak.

[Dozerdog]

Young as me?


Unless you are EE's age- I doubt it

[Ebenezer]

Originally posted by Jan Reimers
Screw potential. Let's draft some players that we actually need and can produce something besides future promise.


How many non-1st rounds contribute their first year, let alone make a significant impact...very, very few.

[Jan Reimers]

I was already in high school when the Bills came to town in 1960.

[Mr. Miyagi]

Originally posted by Jan Reimers
I'm not as young as you, Dozer. I'd like to see us make the playoffs again before I croak.
:rofl:

[hwc]

Originally posted by Jan Reimers
1. Do not take a seriously injured player, even if he is the best athlete available.

Unless doing so will garner the most headlines for your media-hog GM.

IMO, wasting a 1st round pick on a McGahee was the most arrogant, stupid decision of the year.

[Ebenezer]

Originally posted by hwc
IMO, wasting a 1st round pick on a McGahee was the most arrogant, stupid decision of the year.

call us in two or three years and we can discuss it further.

[Jan Reimers]

As I said in another post, drafting McGahee at the time wasn't so bad, in that we didn't realize how poor we were going to be on the O line, at WR, and at FS.

We now know how many holes we need to plug, and should draft with those very real problem areas in mind, not with a best-athlete-available-even-if-he's-injured mindset.

[stuckincincy]

Originally posted by Jan Reimers
As I said in another post, drafting McGahee at the time wasn't so bad, in that we didn't realize how poor we were going to be on the O line, at WR, and at FS.

We now know how many holes we need to plug, and should draft with those very real problem areas in mind, not with a best-athlete-available-even-if-he's-injured mindset.

I have to differ here a bit, Jan.

It's hard to think that they didn't realize that center/guard needed some help. I was quite mad when they passed on OG Steinback. Faine was picked just before the bills, by CLE.

OK about Kelsay, we'll see.

There's another school of draft thought,
in which one tends to draft to one's team strengths. If for example, you have a good O-Line, then that's something you now can depend upon, so continue to strengthen that position to eliminate worries in coming seasons...as the bills did in the Kelly and Fergie years. Or as Denver did at RB.

[Mr. Miyagi]

Originally posted by stuckincincy
Or as Denver did at RB.
That's what we did with McGahee. At the time we had a healthy Henry, Morris, Gary, Burns and Simonton.

Results:
Henry got hurt (though he still played well)
Morris got hurt
Gary traded
Burns sucked
Simonton benched, released and resigned (back to bench)

[stuckincincy]

Originally posted by Mr. Miyagi

That's what we did with McGahee. At the time we had a healthy Henry, Morris, Gary, Burns and Simonton.

Results:
Henry got hurt (though he still played well)
Morris got hurt
Gary traded
Burns sucked
Simonton benched, released and resigned (back to bench)

Only to some degree w/ McGahee. They cut Centers, traded Bryson then Gary, should have realized that Burns/Simonton were a bit iffy. Crosby got hurt (not that he was in the rb picture in any big way anyways - the special teams missed him tho).

They effectively lefs thenselves with the missused Gash, henry, and morris. If they thought Mcgahee was gonna play this year....

But what was the difference, with the way that so-called staff used the running game?

Denver had Davis, then got Anderson then Gary then Portis.