BillBoard

The hiring of Pittsburgh Steelers' scout Doug Whaley represents a significant addition to the front-office football brainpower of the Buffalo Bills.

In hiring Whaley, Bills general manager Buddy Nix followed a tried-and-often-true method of scouting acquisitions: Pluck people off the payroll of the most successful organizations. Whaley had been identified in numerous national publications as an up-and-coming general manager candidate in the past two years. The Steelers have had outstanding success in player development. One reason is they don't often have to re-trace their steps in the draft. They have had arguably the most dominant defensive team in the league this decade. It's not because they draft more defensive players than other teams. They just don't have to go back and re-draft at many positions, as some teams must do.

Whaley had the same role in Pittsburgh as John Guy held in Buffalo since 2001 - scouting the NFL and other pro leagues for free-agent acquisitions and doing advance scouting of opponents for game-plannning purposes. While Whaley did mostly pro scouting for Pittsburgh, he would do some college scouting, attending college games on Saturday, the day before he scouting the Steelers' upcoming opponent each week.

Pittsburgh's best success in free agency has been identifying which veterans to retain. The Steelers have done a great job of keeping their own young talent. Their key free agency signings during Whaley's tenure have been Pro Bowl linebacker James Farrior, center Justin Hartwig, safety Ryan Clark and defensive tackle Chris Hoke.

---Mark Gaughan