According to Peter King the Bills...

[Kerr]

one of the team that wanted to trade up to draft Reggie Bush. Marv must not really be entirely happy with Mr. Willis Mcgahee. Oh, and something about whitner.

2. I think -- no, I know -- that Green Bay, Buffalo and the Jets were the three teams that expressed interest in trading for the Saints' second overall pick and the rights to Reggie Bush. But no one got serious. Not even remotely. And the Jets' offer wasn't the best New Orleans got.
3. I think the weirdest pick so far was Donte Whitner at No. 8 to the Bills. I mean, is there an argument? Nothing against him, but who had him in the top 10 of their mocks?

[Jersey1031]

one of the team that wanted to trade up to draft Reggie Bush. Marv must not really be entirely happy with Mr. Willis Mcgahee. Oh, and something about whitner.

2. I think -- no, I know -- that Green Bay, Buffalo and the Jets were the three teams that expressed interest in trading for the Saints' second overall pick and the rights to Reggie Bush. But no one got serious. Not even remotely. And the Jets' offer wasn't the best New Orleans got.
3. I think the weirdest pick so far was Donte Whitner at No. 8 to the Bills. I mean, is there an argument? Nothing against him, but who had him in the top 10 of their mocks?


Actually they said it was Tenn, NY, and SF...

[GarnOFreak]

if we did go up to number 2, I would have rather us take D'brick instead of Bush. Call me crazy, but I wanted him that bad.

[LifetimeBillsFan]

one of the team that wanted to trade up to draft Reggie Bush. Marv must not really be entirely happy with Mr. Willis Mcgahee. Oh, and something about whitner.

2. I think -- no, I know -- that Green Bay, Buffalo and the Jets were the three teams that expressed interest in trading for the Saints' second overall pick and the rights to Reggie Bush. But no one got serious. Not even remotely. And the Jets' offer wasn't the best New Orleans got.
3. I think the weirdest pick so far was Donte Whitner at No. 8 to the Bills. I mean, is there an argument? Nothing against him, but who had him in the top 10 of their mocks?

Mayock said that the Bills were very interested in taking him on Thursday or Friday (see the "Mayock on Crack" thread). I had heard that the Bills were very impressed by Whitner's workout and had a tremendous interview with him at the Combine and that he liked them a lot, too. I also read that the Bills were not as high on Bunkley and Ngata as they seemed to be. So (in that same thread), I said that it was not likely, but not as out of the question as it seemed.

If you consider that Detroit was projected to take Huff in a lot of mocks and did take Bullocks, the second best pure Cover 2 safety, with their pick in the second round it is not out of the question that the Lions could have taken Whitner at # 9. Also, Miami was reported to be very high on him--they took Allen and Cleveland, who had traded C.Crocker, was mentioned as well. PFW reported that the Bills were looking to trade down if they could still get Whitner, but got late word that the interest in him was such that they might not get him if they traded down. Since Clayton, etc. reported that Philly and Denver offered trades to Buffalo, it is only logical that the teams PFW was refering to were picking higher than # 14, Philly's spot. So, obviously, there must have been teams that had Whitner rated higher than the mocks did.

One explanation for this might be that Whitner ran a 4.38 at his pro day, much better than at the Combine (4.45) and not far off of Huff's 40 time. A lot of mocks and draft gurus might not have taken that into consideration in how they rated him. You can bet that the NFL GMs knew that and factored it into their ratings.

[BigGabes23]

in 2002...

. I think I still think Bryant McKinnie will be a better NFL player than Mike Williams, though the Bills got themselves a heck of a player.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/peter_king/news/2002/04/20/five_things_two/

For a "inside guy" he never gets anything right. He went on to say tha the bills had one of the best drafts in 2002...

[MVP]

I had a huge smile on my face just praying that the Jets would take Leinart, allowing D'Brick to just fall right into our laps.

[BillsNick]

if we did go up to number 2, I would have rather us take D'brick instead of Bush. Call me crazy, but I wanted him that bad.

You are absolutely crazy.

[MVP]

You are absolutely crazy.
I don't know how any1 could pass on Bush, that is crazy.

[AndreReed83]

one of the team that wanted to trade up to draft Reggie Bush. Marv must not really be entirely happy with Mr. Willis Mcgahee. Oh, and something about whitner.

2. I think -- no, I know -- that Green Bay, Buffalo and the Jets were the three teams that expressed interest in trading for the Saints' second overall pick and the rights to Reggie Bush. But no one got serious. Not even remotely. And the Jets' offer wasn't the best New Orleans got.
3. I think the weirdest pick so far was Donte Whitner at No. 8 to the Bills. I mean, is there an argument? Nothing against him, but who had him in the top 10 of their mocks?

Some guy named John Murphy for Yahoo! sports said Whitner was going to be the pick the night before Day 1 of the draft. Him and the already mentioned Mayock in this thread are the only two I've seen that got it right.

[Drive 4 Five]

What I find foolish is the fact that while nearly every expert will acknowledge that Whitner is a good fit for the Bills and think he will be a good player for us, they would have rather us lost him than pick him where we did. He isn't worth the number eight and all that stupidity. To me, so long as he gets the job done and develops nicely, what does it matter? Now if Ferguson, Williams, or Davis were on the board and the Bills still took Whitner then I'd say they had a case to ***** but that isn't what happened so all the experts just need to shut the hell up.

[The_Philster]

I don't know how any1 could pass on Bush, that is crazy.
It'd be crazy to waste a top draft pick on a guy that you don't need when there are other players rated highly that could fill gaping holes.