Buddy Nix Gonna Change The Mix

By bILZrok  |   Thursday, February 25, 2010  |  Comments( 41 )

Buffalo Bills
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With the grumblings emanating from the Buffalo Bills fan base about the choice of Buddy Nix as GM, it might be nice to at least delve into Buddy’s past history and the level of success he’s had at spotting talent. anello1960 has requested that he be compared to one of the consensus top 2 or 3 GM’s in all the land… our former top man, Bill Polian and that ProBowls (PB) be used as a comparison. Granted, it’s an arbitrary award and has grown even more worthless recently, but as a first pass… it’ll have to do.

I chose to start with the 6yr period in San Diego before Nix was elevated to assistant GM and had more say in the draft selections. Before that move, he was a Pro Personnel guy that was responsible for free agent recommendations. Wikipedia describes Buddy Nix as being generally assumed to be in the top 5 GM’s in the NFL. If that’s true, he’s certainly done it under the radar.

For Bill Polian, I used the 12yr period that began when Bill took control of the Colts during the 1998 draft. There was a noticeable difference from the success he gained early on versus recently. For that reason, his data is separated into the 1st 6yrs and the last 6yrs.

The Buffalo Bills are also thrown in for comparison. The time period for them starts with the Donahoe regime and the 2001 draft. The Bills are broken into three sub-categories : Donahoe (2001-2005), Levy (2006) and Jauron-Modrak-Brandon (2007-08). I threw the 2009 draft into Buddy Nix’s stats as he was brought back to Buffalo in January of 2009 to help improve that area of the team.

In the first 6 years of Bill Polian's body of work at Indy, he drafted 44 players and 8 of them went to PB’s a total of 28 times. During the last six years however, 43 were drafted and only 3 of them went to PB’s a total of 4 times. That’s a decrease of over 60% in his success rate and a decrease of 86% with regard to the total number of PB’s. His totals were 11 out of 87 players voted to PB's a total of 32 times. An interesting side note is his overwhelming success early on in the first round. Only four of the 11 PB players came from anywhere other than the first round.

The void of talent in SD's draft picks prior to Nix is unbelievable. In the 6 seasons before Buddy Nix was promoted in SD following Butler's passing... 49 players were drafted and none of them ever made a single PB! In the 7 yrs after that, he drafted 61 players with 10 of them getting to a total of 22 PB's. In sharp contrast to Polian, 7 of those 11 came AFTER the 1st round.

The data is shown below.

DRAFTED PLAYERS REACHING PROBOWL GAME

POLIAN
1ST 6yrs……...8/44 (18%)
Last 6yrs…......3/43 (7%)
Totals……….11/87 (13%)

NIX (2001 to present)
1ST 8yrs…….10/61 (16%)
Last year….........1/8 (13%)
Totals………..11/69 (16%) <--- The Winner

Buffalo Bills
Donahoe ……......5/51 (10%)
Levy………….…....1/7 (14%)
M-B-J…………….0/10 (0%)
Totals……....….**6/68 (9%)
**Note – Out of those 6 ProBowlers, only three remain on the team.


PLAYERS DRAFTED in the 1st ROUND, REACHING A PROBOWL GAME

POLIAN (1998 to present)
1ST 6yrs……..5/6 (83%)
Last 6yrs…......1/4 (25%)
Totals……….6/10 (60%) <--- The Winner

NIX (2001 to present)
1ST 8yrs…..….4/9 (44%)
*Last year....….0/2 (0%)
Totals………..4/11 (36%)
*Note - (Maybin and Wood still have time)

Buffalo Bills
Donahoe .............2/7 (29%)
Levy.......................1/1 (100%)
M-B-J.....................0/1 (0%)
Totals....................3/9 (33%)


PLAYERS DRAFTED AFTER 1st ROUND AND REACHING PROBOWL GAME

POLIAN (1998 to present)
1ST 6yrs........3/38 (8%)
Last 6yrs........2/39 (5%)
Totals.............5/77 (7%)

NIX (2001 to present)
1ST 8yrs.........6/52 (12%)
Last year...........1/6 (17%)
Totals..............7/58 (12%) <---- The Winner

Buffalo Bills
Donahoe...........3/44 (7%)
Levy......................0/6 (0%)
M-B-J....................0/9 (0%)
Totals.................3/59 (5%)


In summary, while the ability to gage Buddy Nix on these numbers alone is completely ridiculous… it can serve as one method of comparison. It also solidifies the notion that finding the talent is only half of the problem. Finding a way to keep the talent you’ve located is vital to a team’s progression. The whole running on a treadmill thing has to end. I’m encouraged that Nix said as much when discussing his general approach to free agency. He immediately said that securing your own talent is first and foremost the top priority. Fortunately for him, with the present roster, that’s not going to be a problem this year. Fortunately for us, somebody might just restore direction and common sense with regards to putting a competitive team together. This much is known… we can at least have good reason for hope now.
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