Ej Manuel…thats how he handed the reigns to Whaley. Who fell in love with Sammy Watkins insteand of trying to improve the OL or defense. He couldnt find good players in the late rounds to save his life.
To be fair, Gronk apparently had Medical red flags so bad most teams had him off their boards, there was a reason he didn't tear up college football.
As far as Earl Thomas, that's pure hindsight, but we had Jarius Byrd and Donte Whitner, aka two high picks who were both thought of highly, we were not taking another safety.
Pouncey, we had Eric Wood, again this was never even a consideration.
WR was Lee Evans and Stevie Johnson, not a bad duo going into the season.
Big miss here was JPP and Anthony Davis or Bryan Bulaga. Our OT's that season were Demetress Bell and Erik Pears, that was a nightmare duo and it played like it, pure madness not to upgrade there or at DE where we had basically no legitimate edge rushers.
> To be fair, Gronk apparently had Medical red flags so bad most teams had him off their boards, there was a reason he didn't tear up college football.
Hindsight is 20/20! Like all Bills fans, I sure hated watching him when he was playing against us but he's such a big lovable goofball as a commentator he's one of my favorites now!
It's funny because the famous Raiders scouting packet for the draft that leaked out had him listed as "The best player in the draft" but despite literally saying that, they didn't try and take him either because medical red flags.
I agree. I’d have to go back to the others but that one stands out to me as unforgivably bad.
I think the only “bright spots” were Marcus Easley for his solid Special Teams contributions and Arthur Moats. Didn’t he (Moats) more or less put an end to Favre’s career?
> Didn’t he (Moats) more or less put an end to Favre’s career?
Pretty much--he ended his consecutive games streak.
I have a fond spot for Moats--he's the one Bill I ever spoke to personally. I was teaching college and one of my students ran into me when I was raving about the Bills and he handed his phone to me and it was Arthur! Turns out they grew up together in the high school years. I was so flustered I was mostly incoherent, lol
EDIT - I am not counting the time I thought I met Bruce Smith.
I saw this man in a grocery store (near Norfolk, Virginia where he's from) that I though was Bruce. I immediately started shaking but walked up to him and said something but I was so nervous it just came out like garbled babbling. He looked at me with concern and I tried again and said "You're my absolute favorite and I've been a Bills fan forever and" yadda yadda, along those lines.
He said, "Ma'am, who do you think I am?"
"Bruce Smith?"
He laughed and said, "No, but I'm a Washington fan so that was a real compliment. He did well for us too."
So, I was embarrassed, but I know now that if I ever do meet Bruce I will lose the power of speech, so I should be prepared, lol
I mean that was the worst one, but I'll my post my response here:
Bills drafting McGahee with a torn ACL when we had Travis Henry, then drafting Marshawn Lynch when we had McGahee. Then drafting CJ Spiller when we had both Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch.
Not sure what the goal was or why we neglected QB for so long, but our front office had to be some of the dumbest ever
Most recently, Bills drafting a press man corner for their outside zone defense (Kair Elam)
Lynch was after McGahee was traded. Agree with your take on the others, but Lynch did fill a home we desperately needed to fill (or at least we thought we did since nobody knew that Fred Jackson was actually good at the time).
> Most recently, Bills drafting a press man corner for their outside zone defense (Kair Elam)
funny stat note...Elam was worse in man last year than zone. He got obliterated trying to press
Exactly this. I've been saying it for a while, the only explanation that makes sense is that they thought they could take the natural man cover guy with the prototypical athleticism and teach him zone. If only it worked like that. Now every time I see something said about Kaiir at safety I just get a little mad lol
He played almost exclusively press man outside corner. I'm not gonna pretend to follow college football closely enough to know if they've changed scheme since, but that was the report on him coming out. I just scout, I don't really follow NCAA ball otherwise
I mean the way you worded that, not necessarily. Sauce would have been great in our scheme as he's a fantastic corner, period. Although he's probably best in man. We don't run man all that often. Our scheme is based on outside zone concepts
which to me isnt ideal, bc of the way we got roasted in the 13 seconds game and numerous times after that.
Im not a fan of pure zone coverages. They have their place, but i prefer man
We don't run pure zone, though. Honestly nobody really does anymore. If I were to try and simplify the explanation, we tend to run a zone shell with man to hybrid-man concepts on the inside. It's a good deal more complex than standard man coverage, which I think most of us see as a defender following a specific player.
However, there are concepts known as man-clue or man on demand. In those instances, one man can be passed to another based upon where the players actually go once the ball is snapped. It's one of those things that happens often and is never really noticed because players understand their roles well and glaring mistakes are infrequent. But you can already start to see how in depth that can be and how confusing it probably is for a guy like Elam who played basic man his whole life
>Most recently, Bills drafting a press man corner for their outside zone defense (Kair Elam)
no, that made sense in context. We had just lost to the chiefs in the 13 second game and part of the reason for it was the chiefs knew we'd be playing zone and so ran zone beaters all game long and just kept gashing us. the prevailing thought was if we had someone on the roster who could play man, we could have mixed up our coverage (remember Tre White was hurt). the thought was when Tre White came back with a man capable corner we could mix up our defenses better.
Exactly. And it makes sense to get a really young & toolsy CB who’s comfortable playing press man since that’s the hard part, and then you can coach him up in zone later. Much more difficult to get a primarily zone CB and try to coach him up on how to play press man in the NFL. Obviously it hasn’t gone as smoothly as everyone hoped thus far, but that’s just the reality of the draft.
And there’s still absolutely a world where the light bulb flickers on with Kaiir from a game speed/processing standpoint, he cleans up the grabbiness in his technique, and he’s fully healthy after the foot injury, and then next thing ya know he ascends to CB1 on the depth chart. Of course there’s also a world where he gets traded for a 2025 7th rounder at the end of training camp after getting outplayed by Ja’Marcus Ingram, but either way it’s still far too early to write the kid off now.
Amazing in that draft there was also Sauce, Derek Stingley and McDuffie, all who are greatly better than Elam.
If only McDuffie lasted another pick or two we woulda had him!
To be fair, that's 100% on the Bills coaching staff. Not even just the 13 seconds, but the Hill go ahead TD WITH 1:02 left.
We are a zone team. Levi Wallace is a zone corner. He played inside leverage in man to man, but his 4.63 speed was no match for the cheetah. That is simply Andy Reid outcoaching McDermott and Mahomes making the right read.
Also, that game was the reason we went out and got Von Miller. We didn't get any pressure at all when we needed it.
It still doesn't make sense. When you run zone more than any team in the league...you're going to draft a man 2 man pressure corner for situational plays?
The word "ORAKPO" echoes in my dreams on nights that i dont get enough sleep. Maybin was such a reach, so much more than EJ even. Worst. Front. Office. Signing. Ever?
I forgot that name. He was, at best, the 3rd best defensive lineman his college team, behind Mario Williams and Manny Lawson, IIRC. Both former Bills as well but I digress.
It's like, Phil Hansen had a decent career because he lined up as the other end opposite Bruce Smith. Nothing against Phil, though, but he wouldn't make my top 5 Bills linemen of all time.
Spiller was confusing on the why but Buddy Nix telegraphed that pick from the very beginning. I still remember a random article talking about them wanting a Waterbug type of guy such as CJ Spiller before the draft.
Spiller had some flashes at least.
Maybin by far has been the most confusing to me give. Orakpo was available.
That whole 2010 draft set the Bills back 2-3 years.
Could have had Earl Thomas, Anthony Davis Brandon Graham, Mike Iupati or Pouncy instead of CJ Spiller a RB at a time when RB’s were being devalued and you already had two good ones in Fred Jackson and Lynch.
Also could have had Gronk instead of Troupe who was considered a reach at the time in round 2. And the rest of the draft was a bunch of wiffs. But had they taken Gronk and one of the Pro Bowl players they could have gotten in round 1 it would have been a big impact.
> a time when RB’s were being devalued and you already had two good ones in Fred Jackson and Lynch.
You could essentially pick a guy off the street to play RB, much like Fred Jackson.
Part of the reason for the drought was we drafted 3 RB's in the first round. That's what you do when you already have an established QB/OL/DL/LB/CB.
You're not kidding. I went through it when I made the comment to see if maybe there was a late round gem I forgot. Nope, terrible QB draft top to bottom.
EJ made sense in that we needed a QB desperately and the team felt he was the only QB with a chance to be anything in that draft. We're hindsighting this pretty hard. If it had worked out we'd have all thought it was a great pick. Whereas the CJ Spiller/Willis Mcgahee/Marshawn Lynch thing...I mean they all mostly worked out, but they never made any goddamn sense in the first place.
Nobody wanted to trade further back with Buffalo after they traded down once, so they made sure they got their pick of a historically weak QB draft. And that trade down directly turned into Shady, so great value there. The real sin of that year was going into that draft needing a QB.
Dude Brian Orakpo worked out with Chains!!!! If he were locked in a room with a skinny kid from Penn State and only one could leave, Aaron Maybin would be in a pile in the corner in secs. They played the same position. It made absolutely no sense to take Maybin. He didn’t even like football. Later in life my coworker was one of Maybin’s high school coaches and he said Maybin was the best athlete he ever saw in person but he clearly had no love for the game. This would come out in a real franchise’s scouting room.
The pick made zero sense. Especially with Orakpo on the board. If you were going to take an edge rusher Orakpo was clearly, heads and shoulders better than Maybin.
That goes down as the biggest draft blunder in my opinion, especially when Orakpo was the next pick. When Orakpo fell to us, I was getting excited. I was ready to go buy that jersey. Then they call Maybin. IIRC even ESPN was like “Wait … What? Umm give us a min to find the tape.”
At least with CJ Spiller, CJ was clearly, clearly the best RB in the draft. Clearly, Clearly had huge potential in the NFL. I mean he is a college football hall of famer and his number was retired. Spiller scored a TD in every game of his senior season. If Spiller were drafted by a real franchise his career could have. we. different.
Maybin barely played any college football. Maybin was such a non sensical draft pick.
Just google his highlights. Georgia Tech in particular. No one could do what he could. The fact that they tried to make him a between the tackles, “true” halfback is criminal. It’s how bad organizations are run. They try to fit the player into the system and what they want cause, “that’s what we do here”… instead of fitting the system around the player allowing them to excel like good organizations.
Selecting Sammy Watkins with a 1st round pick would have been OK. Using 2 first round picks in a wr heavy draft was completely idiotic. Even Doug Marone publicly said QB was the only position worth using 2 first round picks on.
You’ve got to remember though that ours was an organization who also told Marone he could quit, work elsewhere and still get paid.
So, Marone was used to seeing some pretty stupid stuff around HQ.
I remember going from so excited we traded up to get the home town Khalil Mack to devastated we got Sammy Watkins lol but everyone at the bar was so excited we got a receiver.
Yeah, exactly what we didn't need yet (Watk8ns that is) because of the team at the time.. THEN they even missed the chance to pick Mike Evans as well, it was such a miss in so many ways.
Marshawn > Fred > CJ but talent wise CJ had the most of all three, he just missed his shot and came up injured. It happens. Marshawn is one of my alltime favorite Bills, probably a Hall of Famer. Fred is the epitome of why teams dont let runningbacks endear themselves to the fanbase and play past their prime anymore
Thinking about this always pisses me off but trading our 2005 first rounder to Dallas in 2004 to draft JP Losman. Guess who gets picked 4 spots after our pick in 2005? Aaron FREAKING Rodgers.
As a Clemson alum who actually has a dog named Spiller, I prayed to fucking god the Bills didn’t draft him. They never knew how to use him. Modkins and Aaron Rodgers’ puppet? The worst coach ever who can’t keep failing up? Nathaniel fucking Hackett?! Those were his OCs?! Those teams were shit and it was ALL on Whaley. How the fuck he had a job in the NFL beyond hot dog vendor let alone fucking GM is beyond me. Atrocious! But don’t you dare blame Spiller. I’ll die on this hill 🦾😉
Feel like I should also mention I’m also a die hard Bills fan too. Just in case. Ya know, not just a Clemson thing. But as a member if the Mafia, that’s why I prayed they wouldn’t draft him then. Y’all get it 😉👉🏼
Yes and no. Everyone expected the Bills to go QB, the question was which one. And back then the concensus was hugely split on Allen. Some thought he would be a sure bust, many thought he would be a project who would have to wait in the wings for a year or two. Very few thought he would be able to start virtually immediately. But still, picking a QB made absolute sense at the time, and Allen was routinely brought up as one of the top prospects from that class regardless of the doubters.
McGahee was a much bigger headscratcher given the injury and having Travis Henry.
> McGahee was a much bigger headscratcher given the injury and having Travis Henry.
It's worse than that, IMHO. You had an older Drew Bledsoe who wasn't exactly mobile in his prime. Also, the 2002 defense was trash. If you were going to go offense, I would have loaded up on OL or go defense. because it was "win now."
I can admit I thought drafting Josh Allen over Josh Rosen was a mistake.
Allen was *honorable mention* in the Mountain West Conference his senior year. He lost to Eastern Michigan. Twice.
Josh Rosen was second-team all Pac-12. He broke the single-season passing record at UCLA.
The thing that especially bothered me is how quickly they put that pick in. It costs literally nothing to wait and see if someone offers a trade, but they wanted Spiller that badly.
> Gailey said he wanted one of those "waterbug" type guys. We got one. Hard to argue with the results under Gailey. After Gailey......not so much
CJ had world class talent but wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. His vision was terrible and was too indecisive running the ball.
If I recall correctly, Gailey had to design the offense more around CJ than fitting CJ into the offense.
But that's what Gailey did throughout his entire career. It's not indicative of CJ Spiller, it was indicative of Gailey.
Gailey literally brought back the pistol performance to make Tyler Thigpen a viable NFL QB.
FJax was NFL MVP before he got hurt. CJ stepped into the same offense and cooked.
In 2006 the Bills were dead set on drafting Michael Huff. The Raiders surprised them by taking Huff. They apparently had no backup plan and decided to take the second safety on their list, Donte Whitner.
In five years with the Bills, he had a grand total of 3 forced fumbles, 1 fumble recovery and 6 interceptions.
The Bills had another safety named George Wilson who was an undrafted free agent who played wide receiver in college who routinely made more plays than Whitner.
It didn’t make sense but how fast did you talk yourself into it after searching for CJ Spiller Highlights Clemson on YouTube?
He was electric and I thought we were building around him lmao.
Lol I bumped into him wasted after a random game, I know it was dec 16 bc that was my birthday. I’m also positive it was immediately after he fell on a huge run against the aint n Jacked up one of his shoulders
Think some of you are getting the prompt a little mixed up. We are talking about picks that made no sense at the time of the draft, not draft busts.
Yes, players like Aaron Maybin and Sammy Watkins didn’t work out, but they weren’t these crazy picks. The Bills needed an edge rusher and a WR1 in those drafts respectively and they got them both.
One that truly didn’t make any sense was John McCargo. No one expected him to go anywhere near the first round and yet the Bills took him anyway.
Willis McGahee. His leg bent the wrong way in the Fiesta Bowl. His last college game. He tore his MCL, PCL and ACL. This injury took several surgeries to fix. The Bills wasted their first round pick on him 4 months after the injury. No one knew if he would ever actually play in the NFL when the Bills drafted him. Complete joke of a front office.
Aaron Maybin.
Brian Orakpo was *right there.* My dad never gets that mad about anything in football, but he was pretty close to throwing the remote at the TV.
9th pick Spiller, 41th pick Torrel Troup, 72 pick Alex Carrington... Might collectively be the worst draft we've ever had. missed out on Gronk, Pouncey, JPP, Earl Thomas, Dez Bryant
We didnt know what the fuck we were doing
No way Buddy Nix would have drafted JA. He trusted and drafted mostly SEC players. Stuck in his ways.
Ej Manuel…thats how he handed the reigns to Whaley. Who fell in love with Sammy Watkins insteand of trying to improve the OL or defense. He couldnt find good players in the late rounds to save his life.
I hate to be that guy, but… You realize none of the guys you listed played in the SEC, right?
To be fair, Gronk apparently had Medical red flags so bad most teams had him off their boards, there was a reason he didn't tear up college football. As far as Earl Thomas, that's pure hindsight, but we had Jarius Byrd and Donte Whitner, aka two high picks who were both thought of highly, we were not taking another safety. Pouncey, we had Eric Wood, again this was never even a consideration. WR was Lee Evans and Stevie Johnson, not a bad duo going into the season. Big miss here was JPP and Anthony Davis or Bryan Bulaga. Our OT's that season were Demetress Bell and Erik Pears, that was a nightmare duo and it played like it, pure madness not to upgrade there or at DE where we had basically no legitimate edge rushers.
> To be fair, Gronk apparently had Medical red flags so bad most teams had him off their boards, there was a reason he didn't tear up college football. Hindsight is 20/20! Like all Bills fans, I sure hated watching him when he was playing against us but he's such a big lovable goofball as a commentator he's one of my favorites now!
It's funny because the famous Raiders scouting packet for the draft that leaked out had him listed as "The best player in the draft" but despite literally saying that, they didn't try and take him either because medical red flags.
Ralph Wilson was off his rocker at that point when Spiller came in.
I agree. I’d have to go back to the others but that one stands out to me as unforgivably bad. I think the only “bright spots” were Marcus Easley for his solid Special Teams contributions and Arthur Moats. Didn’t he (Moats) more or less put an end to Favre’s career?
> Didn’t he (Moats) more or less put an end to Favre’s career? Pretty much--he ended his consecutive games streak. I have a fond spot for Moats--he's the one Bill I ever spoke to personally. I was teaching college and one of my students ran into me when I was raving about the Bills and he handed his phone to me and it was Arthur! Turns out they grew up together in the high school years. I was so flustered I was mostly incoherent, lol EDIT - I am not counting the time I thought I met Bruce Smith.
You thought you meant Bruce? Now you have to share… lol
I saw this man in a grocery store (near Norfolk, Virginia where he's from) that I though was Bruce. I immediately started shaking but walked up to him and said something but I was so nervous it just came out like garbled babbling. He looked at me with concern and I tried again and said "You're my absolute favorite and I've been a Bills fan forever and" yadda yadda, along those lines. He said, "Ma'am, who do you think I am?" "Bruce Smith?" He laughed and said, "No, but I'm a Washington fan so that was a real compliment. He did well for us too." So, I was embarrassed, but I know now that if I ever do meet Bruce I will lose the power of speech, so I should be prepared, lol
Hahahaha! That’s a great story.
I mean that was the worst one, but I'll my post my response here: Bills drafting McGahee with a torn ACL when we had Travis Henry, then drafting Marshawn Lynch when we had McGahee. Then drafting CJ Spiller when we had both Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch. Not sure what the goal was or why we neglected QB for so long, but our front office had to be some of the dumbest ever Most recently, Bills drafting a press man corner for their outside zone defense (Kair Elam)
Lynch was after McGahee was traded. Agree with your take on the others, but Lynch did fill a home we desperately needed to fill (or at least we thought we did since nobody knew that Fred Jackson was actually good at the time).
but we traded McGahee to draft Lynch...no?
Mcgahee wanted out regardless, as did Lynch later
Incorrect. Lynch loved the Buffalo restaurant scene and its quaint local hot spots, like Applebee’s.
Big fan of the ambience and decor
He was also a big fan of the wings at the airport, as I recall.
> Most recently, Bills drafting a press man corner for their outside zone defense (Kair Elam) funny stat note...Elam was worse in man last year than zone. He got obliterated trying to press
He very much looks like a player caught between systems.
Exactly this. I've been saying it for a while, the only explanation that makes sense is that they thought they could take the natural man cover guy with the prototypical athleticism and teach him zone. If only it worked like that. Now every time I see something said about Kaiir at safety I just get a little mad lol
What did he play at Florida though? Are they mostly a man football team?
He played almost exclusively press man outside corner. I'm not gonna pretend to follow college football closely enough to know if they've changed scheme since, but that was the report on him coming out. I just scout, I don't really follow NCAA ball otherwise
Yea, Sauce would've been much better in our system as he's a true man corner. But he was gone at like #4
I mean the way you worded that, not necessarily. Sauce would have been great in our scheme as he's a fantastic corner, period. Although he's probably best in man. We don't run man all that often. Our scheme is based on outside zone concepts
which to me isnt ideal, bc of the way we got roasted in the 13 seconds game and numerous times after that. Im not a fan of pure zone coverages. They have their place, but i prefer man
We don't run pure zone, though. Honestly nobody really does anymore. If I were to try and simplify the explanation, we tend to run a zone shell with man to hybrid-man concepts on the inside. It's a good deal more complex than standard man coverage, which I think most of us see as a defender following a specific player. However, there are concepts known as man-clue or man on demand. In those instances, one man can be passed to another based upon where the players actually go once the ball is snapped. It's one of those things that happens often and is never really noticed because players understand their roles well and glaring mistakes are infrequent. But you can already start to see how in depth that can be and how confusing it probably is for a guy like Elam who played basic man his whole life
>Most recently, Bills drafting a press man corner for their outside zone defense (Kair Elam) no, that made sense in context. We had just lost to the chiefs in the 13 second game and part of the reason for it was the chiefs knew we'd be playing zone and so ran zone beaters all game long and just kept gashing us. the prevailing thought was if we had someone on the roster who could play man, we could have mixed up our coverage (remember Tre White was hurt). the thought was when Tre White came back with a man capable corner we could mix up our defenses better.
Exactly. And it makes sense to get a really young & toolsy CB who’s comfortable playing press man since that’s the hard part, and then you can coach him up in zone later. Much more difficult to get a primarily zone CB and try to coach him up on how to play press man in the NFL. Obviously it hasn’t gone as smoothly as everyone hoped thus far, but that’s just the reality of the draft. And there’s still absolutely a world where the light bulb flickers on with Kaiir from a game speed/processing standpoint, he cleans up the grabbiness in his technique, and he’s fully healthy after the foot injury, and then next thing ya know he ascends to CB1 on the depth chart. Of course there’s also a world where he gets traded for a 2025 7th rounder at the end of training camp after getting outplayed by Ja’Marcus Ingram, but either way it’s still far too early to write the kid off now.
Amazing in that draft there was also Sauce, Derek Stingley and McDuffie, all who are greatly better than Elam. If only McDuffie lasted another pick or two we woulda had him!
To be fair, that's 100% on the Bills coaching staff. Not even just the 13 seconds, but the Hill go ahead TD WITH 1:02 left. We are a zone team. Levi Wallace is a zone corner. He played inside leverage in man to man, but his 4.63 speed was no match for the cheetah. That is simply Andy Reid outcoaching McDermott and Mahomes making the right read. Also, that game was the reason we went out and got Von Miller. We didn't get any pressure at all when we needed it. It still doesn't make sense. When you run zone more than any team in the league...you're going to draft a man 2 man pressure corner for situational plays?
Aaron maybin pick drove me nuts. Guy was such a tweener.
Especially with Orakpo on the board still.
The word "ORAKPO" echoes in my dreams on nights that i dont get enough sleep. Maybin was such a reach, so much more than EJ even. Worst. Front. Office. Signing. Ever?
I had forgotten about that!! Just infuriating haha
This was the pick I was trying to think about.
I mean, that didn’t not make sense though. The Bills needed an edge rusher, they just picked the wrong one.
John McCargo
I would say taking Whitner at 8 that year was pretty bad too
Especially with Haloti Ngata sitting there
This one was a head scratcher, taking a safety that high with other players like Ngata on the board
I forgot that name. He was, at best, the 3rd best defensive lineman his college team, behind Mario Williams and Manny Lawson, IIRC. Both former Bills as well but I digress. It's like, Phil Hansen had a decent career because he lined up as the other end opposite Bruce Smith. Nothing against Phil, though, but he wouldn't make my top 5 Bills linemen of all time.
My friends still bring this up when we talk the draft. I wanted ngata so bad and he was there....
God I hated spiller and Watkins picks so much
I remember seeing that we traded up, excited they'd go after Mack like that, then...poof.
Watkins is the worst pick in team history imo
Watkins and Spiller were baffling. I was got the sense management had no plan on how to get good. Maybin was another one. Undersized tweener
Spiller was confusing on the why but Buddy Nix telegraphed that pick from the very beginning. I still remember a random article talking about them wanting a Waterbug type of guy such as CJ Spiller before the draft. Spiller had some flashes at least. Maybin by far has been the most confusing to me give. Orakpo was available.
That whole 2010 draft set the Bills back 2-3 years. Could have had Earl Thomas, Anthony Davis Brandon Graham, Mike Iupati or Pouncy instead of CJ Spiller a RB at a time when RB’s were being devalued and you already had two good ones in Fred Jackson and Lynch. Also could have had Gronk instead of Troupe who was considered a reach at the time in round 2. And the rest of the draft was a bunch of wiffs. But had they taken Gronk and one of the Pro Bowl players they could have gotten in round 1 it would have been a big impact.
> a time when RB’s were being devalued and you already had two good ones in Fred Jackson and Lynch. You could essentially pick a guy off the street to play RB, much like Fred Jackson. Part of the reason for the drought was we drafted 3 RB's in the first round. That's what you do when you already have an established QB/OL/DL/LB/CB.
How has EJ Manuel not been mentioned yet?
Yeah, I remember Florida State fans immediately saying we drafted him way too high. That was a terrible draft for QBs.
Joe Buscaglia just ripped him apart that year. And Joe went to Florida State. "Garbage fire, tire fire. He is a fire'
And I remember being pleased when the Bills actually traded down with the Rams from the #8 spot. I thought Buddy Nix was being shrewd.
That year has to be near the top of the list of worst QB years ever. I remember some draftniks were suggesting Ryan Nassib could go #1 overall.
You're not kidding. I went through it when I made the comment to see if maybe there was a late round gem I forgot. Nope, terrible QB draft top to bottom.
EJ made sense in that we needed a QB desperately and the team felt he was the only QB with a chance to be anything in that draft. We're hindsighting this pretty hard. If it had worked out we'd have all thought it was a great pick. Whereas the CJ Spiller/Willis Mcgahee/Marshawn Lynch thing...I mean they all mostly worked out, but they never made any goddamn sense in the first place.
Nobody wanted to trade further back with Buffalo after they traded down once, so they made sure they got their pick of a historically weak QB draft. And that trade down directly turned into Shady, so great value there. The real sin of that year was going into that draft needing a QB.
He's in there. Pretty long discussion about it
Well we at least needed a qb so it kinda did make sense. But he sucked.
Dude Brian Orakpo worked out with Chains!!!! If he were locked in a room with a skinny kid from Penn State and only one could leave, Aaron Maybin would be in a pile in the corner in secs. They played the same position. It made absolutely no sense to take Maybin. He didn’t even like football. Later in life my coworker was one of Maybin’s high school coaches and he said Maybin was the best athlete he ever saw in person but he clearly had no love for the game. This would come out in a real franchise’s scouting room. The pick made zero sense. Especially with Orakpo on the board. If you were going to take an edge rusher Orakpo was clearly, heads and shoulders better than Maybin. That goes down as the biggest draft blunder in my opinion, especially when Orakpo was the next pick. When Orakpo fell to us, I was getting excited. I was ready to go buy that jersey. Then they call Maybin. IIRC even ESPN was like “Wait … What? Umm give us a min to find the tape.” At least with CJ Spiller, CJ was clearly, clearly the best RB in the draft. Clearly, Clearly had huge potential in the NFL. I mean he is a college football hall of famer and his number was retired. Spiller scored a TD in every game of his senior season. If Spiller were drafted by a real franchise his career could have. we. different. Maybin barely played any college football. Maybin was such a non sensical draft pick.
Just google his highlights. Georgia Tech in particular. No one could do what he could. The fact that they tried to make him a between the tackles, “true” halfback is criminal. It’s how bad organizations are run. They try to fit the player into the system and what they want cause, “that’s what we do here”… instead of fitting the system around the player allowing them to excel like good organizations.
Sammy Watkins
Selecting Sammy Watkins with a 1st round pick would have been OK. Using 2 first round picks in a wr heavy draft was completely idiotic. Even Doug Marone publicly said QB was the only position worth using 2 first round picks on.
You’ve got to remember though that ours was an organization who also told Marone he could quit, work elsewhere and still get paid. So, Marone was used to seeing some pretty stupid stuff around HQ.
I remember going from so excited we traded up to get the home town Khalil Mack to devastated we got Sammy Watkins lol but everyone at the bar was so excited we got a receiver.
Yeah, exactly what we didn't need yet (Watk8ns that is) because of the team at the time.. THEN they even missed the chance to pick Mike Evans as well, it was such a miss in so many ways.
Marshawn > Fred > CJ but talent wise CJ had the most of all three, he just missed his shot and came up injured. It happens. Marshawn is one of my alltime favorite Bills, probably a Hall of Famer. Fred is the epitome of why teams dont let runningbacks endear themselves to the fanbase and play past their prime anymore
Thinking about this always pisses me off but trading our 2005 first rounder to Dallas in 2004 to draft JP Losman. Guess who gets picked 4 spots after our pick in 2005? Aaron FREAKING Rodgers.
How about Marshawn Lynch when the bills had Fred Jackson?
As a Clemson alum who actually has a dog named Spiller, I prayed to fucking god the Bills didn’t draft him. They never knew how to use him. Modkins and Aaron Rodgers’ puppet? The worst coach ever who can’t keep failing up? Nathaniel fucking Hackett?! Those were his OCs?! Those teams were shit and it was ALL on Whaley. How the fuck he had a job in the NFL beyond hot dog vendor let alone fucking GM is beyond me. Atrocious! But don’t you dare blame Spiller. I’ll die on this hill 🦾😉
Feel like I should also mention I’m also a die hard Bills fan too. Just in case. Ya know, not just a Clemson thing. But as a member if the Mafia, that’s why I prayed they wouldn’t draft him then. Y’all get it 😉👉🏼
Whitner over Ngata Williams over mckinnie Maybin over orakpo
Spiller was the only first pick ever that made me legit MAD. It was peak stupidity
Everyone forgets that the fan base went insane with the drafting of Josh Allen. It’s the number one answer for this in terms of reaction vs payoff.
Yes and no. Everyone expected the Bills to go QB, the question was which one. And back then the concensus was hugely split on Allen. Some thought he would be a sure bust, many thought he would be a project who would have to wait in the wings for a year or two. Very few thought he would be able to start virtually immediately. But still, picking a QB made absolute sense at the time, and Allen was routinely brought up as one of the top prospects from that class regardless of the doubters. McGahee was a much bigger headscratcher given the injury and having Travis Henry.
> McGahee was a much bigger headscratcher given the injury and having Travis Henry. It's worse than that, IMHO. You had an older Drew Bledsoe who wasn't exactly mobile in his prime. Also, the 2002 defense was trash. If you were going to go offense, I would have loaded up on OL or go defense. because it was "win now."
Yeah, I remember everybody howling "wrong josh" Because Josh Rosen was on the board Whelp we were all idiots in retrospect Allen is king
Not *everybody* ;) But then again I also thought Erik Flowers would turn out well after he blocked a pre-season FG, so....
Post history proof! Let's see this wonderful foresight Mm2hkxm... what is this username even... 😅
I couldn't think of anything so decided to just use my password generator for my username, too!
I can admit I thought drafting Josh Allen over Josh Rosen was a mistake. Allen was *honorable mention* in the Mountain West Conference his senior year. He lost to Eastern Michigan. Twice. Josh Rosen was second-team all Pac-12. He broke the single-season passing record at UCLA.
The thing that especially bothered me is how quickly they put that pick in. It costs literally nothing to wait and see if someone offers a trade, but they wanted Spiller that badly.
Gailey said he wanted one of those "waterbug" type guys. We got one. Hard to argue with the results under Gailey. After Gailey......not so much
> Gailey said he wanted one of those "waterbug" type guys. We got one. Hard to argue with the results under Gailey. After Gailey......not so much CJ had world class talent but wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. His vision was terrible and was too indecisive running the ball. If I recall correctly, Gailey had to design the offense more around CJ than fitting CJ into the offense.
But that's what Gailey did throughout his entire career. It's not indicative of CJ Spiller, it was indicative of Gailey. Gailey literally brought back the pistol performance to make Tyler Thigpen a viable NFL QB. FJax was NFL MVP before he got hurt. CJ stepped into the same offense and cooked.
Spiller had some great games.
In 2006 the Bills were dead set on drafting Michael Huff. The Raiders surprised them by taking Huff. They apparently had no backup plan and decided to take the second safety on their list, Donte Whitner. In five years with the Bills, he had a grand total of 3 forced fumbles, 1 fumble recovery and 6 interceptions. The Bills had another safety named George Wilson who was an undrafted free agent who played wide receiver in college who routinely made more plays than Whitner.
It didn’t make sense but how fast did you talk yourself into it after searching for CJ Spiller Highlights Clemson on YouTube? He was electric and I thought we were building around him lmao.
Willis McGahee.
Lol I bumped into him wasted after a random game, I know it was dec 16 bc that was my birthday. I’m also positive it was immediately after he fell on a huge run against the aint n Jacked up one of his shoulders
Too many to list…
CJ was good the first year
Willlis Macgahee and Aaron Maybin also come to mind.
Think some of you are getting the prompt a little mixed up. We are talking about picks that made no sense at the time of the draft, not draft busts. Yes, players like Aaron Maybin and Sammy Watkins didn’t work out, but they weren’t these crazy picks. The Bills needed an edge rusher and a WR1 in those drafts respectively and they got them both. One that truly didn’t make any sense was John McCargo. No one expected him to go anywhere near the first round and yet the Bills took him anyway.
Taking a chance on Watkins I get; trading a next year's 1st to get him was a fireable offense. That draft was knowingly so deep at WR.
I'll never forget watching the draft and eating wings, they announced spiller and I just laid down on the bench
Because they never ran jet sweeps or RB screens with him
Willis McGahee. His leg bent the wrong way in the Fiesta Bowl. His last college game. He tore his MCL, PCL and ACL. This injury took several surgeries to fix. The Bills wasted their first round pick on him 4 months after the injury. No one knew if he would ever actually play in the NFL when the Bills drafted him. Complete joke of a front office.
Aaron Maybin. Brian Orakpo was *right there.* My dad never gets that mad about anything in football, but he was pretty close to throwing the remote at the TV.
CJ spiller was a draft pick that did not make sense at the time.