Do You Trust Buddy Nix?

When you look at the Bills organization so far this year you can see how much change has occurred. Starting with Russ Brandon, who has recently been promoted to CEO/Team President. The news came down on New Year’s Day and ever since management and coaching have gone in a different direction. Doug Marrone was introduced as the teams 16th head coach after Chan Gailey was given his walking papers. This all happening in January and has led us into February were news surfaced of Doug Whaley Director of pro personal/GM getting an extension. Reports have come out that he will replace Buddy Nix after the draft as the GM. My question to that after seeing Nix draft for the last three seasons is why are we waiting till after?

In 2010 we got our first look at the drafting skills and let’s say if it wasn’t for our first pick there wouldn’t be a single thing to talk about. In the 1st round the Bills selected CJ Spiller. He wasn’t anything they needed at the time but was said to be the best overall talent at that selection. That led to the Bills selecting other players like Torell Troup and Alex Carrington. Overall there wasn’t much to be excited about in this draft until this past year when CJ Spiller started to emerge as a potential top 5 back. This draft would be the only time a QB was taken by Nix and it was in the 7th round Levi Brown. Top players that were passed on by the Bills were: Rob Gronkowski, Jimmy Graham and Jason Pierre-Paul.

When 2011 rolled around the Bills had the #3 pick in the draft and decided to go with Marcell Dareus. All in all it was a pretty safe pick but when you look at the names that were passed over in the 1st round you can’t do anything but shake your head. The likes of AJ Green, Julio Jones, Patrick Peterson and JJ Watt were taken after Dareus and in my eyes have all better proven themselves thus far in their careers. Their 2nd round pick I think was one of their worst picks in the three years. Aaron Williams was taken and from when the pick was announced I hated it. After that pick two quarterbacks were selected and that was something the Bills desperately needed. I personally would have liked to see them take Andy Dalton in that situation. Other notable players taken were Kelvin Sheppard and Da Norris Searcy.

In Buddy’s last draft I think this was his best but still lacked in some necessities. He opened up taking corner Stephon Gilmore with the 10th overall pick. Gilmore would end up playing pretty much the whole season and showing he will be attracting the opponents top WR for years to come. The Bills followed that up by taking Cordy Glenn to assure their offensive line. The next pick is where I start asking myself why did we do this? The Bills went ahead and traded up to take WR TJ Graham. He had little to no impact after one season. There were two QB’s that we could’ve taken in Russell Wilson or Nick Foles. Also I think T.Y Hilton would have been the better pick at WR. That being said we did select Nigel Bradham and I thought that was a great pick for the Bills. With the exception of the top two picks and Bradham this draft wasn’t anything to be happy about again. This draft is where I really thought they would press for a QB in the higher rounds.

Overall the last three drafts have been nothing to be thrilled about if you are a Bills fan. No QB’s taken in a round higher than the 7th and the best guy we drafted was only because he was the best talent. As crazy as it sounds I would give all of these guys back in order to obtain a franchise quarterback. How can you go about your business and not get or at least take a chance on the most important player on the field? I would much rather have Whaley step in now and have him take a shot at the draft. Nix had his chance and sure didn’t do any favors for the fans of Buffalo.