I started playing Words with Friends (Scrabble) about a week ago. It’s definitely addicting … it’s also unbelievably frustrating at times. It’s not hard to figure out where I’ve had that feeling before.
For the past decade, the Buffalo Bills have not been epically bad; they rarely got to that Detroit Lions-level of ineptitude. And that’s one of the more frustrating parts. Since they’ve been stuck in an abyss of mediocrity they haven’t gotten a shot at a truly elite quarterback prospect. (Note: they did have the number four overall pick in 2002. “Starter for the next ten years at tackle” Mike Williams was the pick. Yeah…) (Note II: I don’t want them to be bad just to get a good draft pick, which would be ridiculous. I’m just pointing out that if your team does happen to stink at the right time it could great benefit them, particularly if they get someone like, say, Peyton Manning.) Plus, there’s always just enough hope that the Bills will be the surprise team of the year and end that playoff drought, or find their version of Kurt Warner.
Soon, you realize it’s not going to happen. And that sucks. So, what is it, bad luck? Horrible ownership? A curse? All of the above?
Luck is certainly part of it, but it’s easy to blame bad luck. Just like when I lose in Words with Friends because my opponent scored 35 points of the word “qat” (sounds made up, in fact even my Word spellchecker thinks it’s made up) or the computer gives me all consonants, my initial reaction is to call shenanigans. We’re always quick to blame outside factors, refs especially, are a constant target of mine. That’s too easy though, luck is important to success but so is hiring talented people to run your team. I don’t feel the Bills have taken a proactive, win-at-all-costs approach to their business lately. It’s shown.
I mean, even I started using “qat” against my opponents.
You don’t want to rely too heavily on mirroring another team’s success, but it can’t hurt to take a peek at the blueprint. The Bills, Ralph Wilson in particular, seem content on doing their own thing. Hire a retired, 70-year old rookie GM, why not? Ignore the tackle and quarterback positions? Sure. The teams that have turned around their franchises quickly (I’m thinking of Miami and Atlanta primarily) took similar approaches to each other and pretty much the opposite approach as Buffalo.
Miami and Atlanta did go in different directions regarding their general manager picks, though both worked out and both drew off the concept of hiring someone from a successful environment. The Dolphins snagged Bill Parcells (a move the Bills couldn’t make if they tried. Which they probably wouldn’t try). The Falcons picked a promising talent from a winning franchise, Thomas Dimitroff, formerly of New England. This is what I was hoping the Bills would do (although, to be fair, I’ll definitely give Buddy Nix a shot, and bringing former Steeler Doug Whaley into the mix looks to be a solid move as well). They also drafted franchise players (Jake Long and Matt Ryan). Of course, that again brings me back to the point that the Bills haven’t been bad enough to warrant a draft pick that can get them a talent like Ryan or Long. Still, they’ve pretty much ignored those two positions, I mean, there has to be some way to improve them, right?
The Jets got the quarterback they wanted by ripping off a stupid team. I wish the Bills would make more trades simply because if you go after the incompetent GM’s you can really help yourselves out. For instance, the Jets trading from the 17th overall pick to the 5th to get Sanchez and did this without having to give up the next year’s first round pick. They just traded the Browns a bunch of backups and scrubs that Eric Mangini liked (horrible). I fear though that the problem is this: the Bills are one of those stupid teams. They’re more likely to get ripped off than to take advantage of another team’s moronic tendencies. A look at their recent drafts really lends creditability to the “stupid team” theory.
Before the 2010 draft, I wrote a column campaigning for the Bills to select Notre Dame quarterback Jimmy Clausen. To my delight, Clausen was available with the number nine overall pick (remember, leading up to the draft, this was very much in doubt). The Bills practically sprinted to the podium and I thought, “Yes, we have our quarterback.” But I was also reading the ESPN live draft chat as I was watching. The guy on there had been announcing the picks before they were actually made… he said the Bills were picking Clemson’s C.J. Spiller, the top rated running back. I was not happy. Like a lot of Bills fans I scoffed at this pick because they simply did not need another running back.
Needless to say, by the time the second round was ready to start the next day, I had watched enough Spiller YouTube highlights to get excited. Now, at this point, I believe it’s going to turn out to be a great pick. Spiller looks like a future superstar, he certainly could turn into one of the most exciting players in the league and a future Madden-cover candidate (well, you know, if it weren’t for the “No Bills allowed” rule).
I’ll have more on Spiller later in part II, but for all the potential he has, I still have this irksome feeling that the Bills missed a great opportunity in the draft. After Clausen slipped out of the first round, I desperately wanted the Bills to trade up and get their franchise guy. Spiller and Clausen would be the future of offense in Buffalo and a great start to getting this team back to the Super Bowl. When both Clausen and Colt McCoy fell to the second round I couldn’t believe it, finally some luck for the Bills. And then…
The Bills selected Torrell Troup. I couldn’t (and still can't) shake that nagging feeling that the Bills just made one of the moves that you look back on and say, “Oh, we could have had (whoever).” Like picking Mike Williams over Dwight Freeney, Donte Whitner over Haloti Ngata, Marshawn Lynch over Darrelle Revis, you get the point, there’s a lot of them. I know the Bills needed a nose tackle and the P.R. people at Buffalo tell me he’s going to be very good, and he better be. They need him to be a Pro Bowler. By the time the third round rolled along, I knew they weren’t picking a quarterback. Colt McCoy was there, but obviously he, nor any passer in this draft, were thought of as franchise guys by the Bills’ brass.
I realize that Buddy Nix knows way more about football than myself. I mean, I would have taken a guy who lasted until pick 48 over the electric Spiller. As a scout, Nix has that he has a keen eye for talent, but still, why completely ignore the quarterback position? And the left tackle position? The Edwards/Bell combination does not inspire confidence from Bills nation.
Not to mention, waiting until next year to get your quarterback seems very risky (might I add, a strategy that many Bills fans actually wanted). I’m not that confident that they will pick the right guy. We can pray that Brian Brohm suddenly looks like the Louisville All-Star or that Levi Brown is a Tom Brady, Kurt Warner or even Tony Romo type steal. I just can’t buy into the fact that Trent Edwards is the answer. Obviously, I’d love to see him become that franchise guy that Buffalo desperately craves, I would just be shocked if it actually happens.
What about next year’s draft? People are already talking about Locker, Mallett, Ponder, Luck, etc. I’ll try to pay attention to these guys throughout the year because one them should end up as the Bills future passer/savior. Personally, I prefer Andrew Luck just because of his awesome name. Think about it, what great quarterback didn’t have an awesome name? The name is very important, plus I can already envision this lede a couple years from now:
All it took for the Buffalo Bills to finally win the Super Bowl was a little Luck.
Andrew Luck led Buffalo with …. (blah, blah, whatever, I’ll be to drunk and my eyes will be too blurry with tears to read the rest, but I think you get my point).
My only other suggestion for the Bills is something I tweeted a couple weeks ago: hire the guys from Inception. If you could plant ideas in Bill Polian’s head to trade Peyton Manning for Trent Edwards or go into Rex Ryan’s dreams and convince him to become a mime, you’d have to do it. But the more I thought about it, this would be considered cheating and in that case Bill Belichick would have already tried it.
Predictions coming in Part II.
Photo credit: Mike Groll The Associated Press
1 comment:
Interesting thoughts. I look forward to reading Part 2.
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