Linebacker London Fletcher would have had good reason to be upset with the Bills front office for using the team's No. 8 overall pick in the draft on a strong safety and not a beefy defensive tackle.

After all, Fletcher would benefit more directly from a player that can keep blockers off of him, like Pat Williams and Sam Adams once did.

Williams left as a free agent after the 2004 season while Adams was benched last year and rendered ineffective as Buffalo's defense, ranked No. 2 in the league in 2004, crashed to 29th.

However, Fletcher had no problem with Buffalo passing on top-rated defensive tackles Brodrick Bunkley and Haloti Ngata and taking Ohio State's Donte Whitner. And it's not just because Whitner is a fellow Cleveland native and he knows him well.

"It's not hard to argue with," Fletcher said. "When you look at the Ohio State team -- and me being from Ohio and a fan, I watched Ohio State a lot -- (linebacker) A.J. Hawk received a lot of attention but Donte Whitner made as big of an impact on that defense.

"Turn on the tape and he was always around the football. He has a suddenness about him and he plays with an attitude. He's mean on that field. Yeah, we need defensive line help but I think the organization knows what they're doing. They felt they could get the defensive lineman they needed later in the draft and Donte was just too good to pass up here."

Buffalo did land a defensive tackle later on, moving up to get North Carolina State's John McCargo with the 26th pick in the first round, and added LSU's Kyle Williams in the fifth round, two players who fit the Tampa Bay-style Cover-2 defensive scheme Buffalo is adopting.

Add in the run-stuffing and playmaking ability of Whitner, and the Bills are instantly better on defense, Fletcher said.

"Having played in that Tampa Bay system, I know he's going to be that John Lynch type of hitter for us in the secondary against the run," Fletcher said. "He's a very focused, mature kid in the weight room. He's a guy you can ink in the starting lineup for the Bills for years to come."

Fletcher liked playing with veteran SS Lawyer Milloy the past three years, but he also had to concede that Milloy's dwindling speed hurt the Bills from a scheme standpoint. Having a strong safety that played mostly in the box, unable to get back in coverage, limited Buffalo's ability to disguise coverage.

That won't happen with Whitner, whose 40-yard dash times are consistently in the 4.4-second range.

"He has an attitude of a Lawyer Milloy, he plays with a mean streak, but he's faster," Fletcher said. "I know there was talk of him possibly playing corner, so you know he has the athleticism to cover tight ends or the slot receiver, depending on what we do with our blitz package. Donte is a tremendous addition to our defense, making plays in coverage or being that eighth man in the box, and I'm sure we'll use him on blitzing, because he's very adept at that, too."

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