Breaking: Bills Cut Aaron Maybin

In news that’s only surprising due to how quickly it came down, the Bills today announced that the team has waived former first-round draft pick Aaron Maybin. Maybin was entering his third NFL season.

Maybin will unfortunately go down as one of the worst first-round picks in NFL history and probably the worst pick the Bills have ever made. He was just never able to really make anything resembling an impact on the games, as evidenced by his career stats: 24 tackles and zero sacks in 27 games. Last season, he was healthy scratch for several games and barely on the field when he did dress.

Maybin’s major problem is that he’s simply not strong enough to hold the point of attack at the NFL level. And that was before Maybin showed up for camp this year at a downright skinny 228 pounds. To play linebacker in the NFL at that size, you’d better have incredible speed, strength, and/or instincts. Maybin has neither.

Maybin apparently had some decent practices in the week leading up to the Bears game, but he proceeded to do absolutely nothing in the actual game, recording just a single tackle. Unfortunately for Maybin, other young outside linebackers like Danny Batten and Robert Eddins were way more productive. We had speculated that Maybin’s chances to make the team had been mortally wounded following the  game, and that turned out to be true.

Head coach Chan Gailey simply decided that was enough was enough and that Maybin was simply never going to blossom into an NFL-quality linebacker. As Chris Brown wrote on BuffaloBills.com,

"When asked about Maybin by reporters, Chan Gailey said the LB worked hard, gave good effort, but he made it clear that Maybin struggled to hold his ground at the point of attack, could not produce consistently and had a long way to go. That shouldn’t be the description for a third-year player."

With the Maybin release, Lee Evans trade last week, Donte Whitner leaving for the 49ers via free agency, and John McCargo sucking his way out of the league, only four of Buffalo’s first-round draft picks since 2000 are still on the roster: Marcell Dareus, C.J. Spiller, Leodis McKelvin, and Eric Wood. And there’s a decent-to-very good chance two of those guys won’t be starters in 2011. That’s some shitty drafting right there.