Pick # 3: Buffalo Bills.

Ah, the Bills. A scrappy, fun to watch team this past year, it can’t be denied, but can anyone ever remember a time when the Bills were anything but scrappy? Since the 1990’s Super Bowl runs their team has been classified by poor personnel decisions, out-coached coaches, and underachieving teams, year after year. The toughest part about the Bills and their tortured fan base is the complete and utter lack of hope. With the Jets’ recent emergence as an elite squad the Bills play in arguably the best division in football. This is a quarterback-driven league, and the lack of production the Bills have gotten out of the position is directly attributable to their decline. The Bills quarterbacks (J.P Losman, Trent Edwards) have been a collection of early to mid round draft picks with lots of unfulfilled potential who in the end, inevitably don’t pan out. It has become such a depressing trend for Bills fan that there was legitimate excitement about Harvard’s own Ryan Fitzpatrick, who had the 22nd passing rating among starting QBs this year, but he came so close to winning a few games and Bills fans expectations are so low that he was applauded. Yet only three starting quarterbacks had a worse completion percentage, Jimmy Clausen, Derek Anderson, and Mark Sanchez. AKA, if you’re trying to win a Super Bowl, which the Bills claim to be trying to do, Fitzpatrick can’t be your starter. They need a franchise guy, and sitting at #3, they are perfectly positioned to do just that.

(INSERT OFFENSIVE NAME) #3 OVERALL MOCK DRAFT PICK:
CAM NEWTON - QB, AUBURN

Look, I’m on board with all the Newton detractors. Could he wind up being a huge bust at the highest level of the sport? There’s a chance. Could he wind up being truly special, as he has demonstrated at every level of his football career, doing nothing but dragging his teams in high school, junior college, and Division I college ball to victory? There’s a chance that could happen as well. It’s easy to say that Newton will be the a bust because the chances are greater he will be. However, one thing that Newton won’t be is Ryan Fitzpatrick, a nice middle of the road kid who will win you some games but probably will never come through when it really matters. He has a special quality about him and the Bills, for too long, have had nothing special at all about them.

This year, for the Bills, is all about hope and something to grasp onto for their legions of loyal fans and their 92 year old dying owner. Ralph Wilson, the long time owner of Bills, isn’t going to be around for too many more seasons. He doesn’t give a shit about some left tackle prospect who will make a real difference as a building block for future teams. He needs to win in the next 2-3 years, and like it or not, the player who gives them the best chance at that is Cam Newton. He might not start in year 1, but with Fitzpatrick’s somewhat competent play they don’t need him to. He will sit, and learn for a year, then blow up in 2012. That’s the hope in Buffalo, and that’s why the Heisman winner and national champ is the pick at #3.

Entire Mock Draft:

1. Carolina Panthers - Marcell Dareus
2. Denver Broncos - Patrick Peterson
3. Buffalo Bills - Cam Newton