"We don't really go a lot by what the experts say. If it's interpreted as a reach, that's fine."
-- Marv Levy, general manager of the Buffalo Bills

You know, I think Levy could have benefited from reading my blog on fantasy baseball and the importance of knowing when players are expected to be drafted, because he completely misses the point here. I can understand if he rated Donte Whitner and John McCargo higher than the draft experts did, and who knows, maybe he's the one who's right about their futures in the NFL. The problem, of course, is that Levy is the only one who had this opinion, so it wasn't necessary for him to reach. If Buffalo was the only one who had Whitner rated this high, that means, obviously, that the other NFL teams had other players rated higher. So put 2 and 2 together: Levy could have traded down, picked up some extra draft picks, AND taken Whitner, anyway, because no one else was going to take him.

I love Marv Levy, but I think he really showed his age yesterday. You get the feeling that if he was more ambitious, more aggressive, and had a little more savvy, he would have been able to use Buffalo's position in the 1st round to his advantage. His failure to do so is especially upsetting in light of how the first seven picks of the draft panned out. There were a lot of great players who were still on the board, players who were coveted by teams lower in the draft -- in particular, Matt Leinart was still on the board, and the Cardinals wanted him; Brodrick Bunkley was still on the board, and the Eagles reportedly REALLY wanted him. Knowing this, the Bills were in a powerful position with the 8th pick, and yet they chose not to exploit it. To me, that's a sign of a weak front office, a team that's unable to take that extra step to put itself in a better position.

Again, it's not the picks that I'm upset with. It's the inability to take advantage of something that seemingly was handed to the Bills on a platter.